


A hundred steps

by Shadowdianne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of CS, mentions of OQ, nothing graphic though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 36,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4437638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/Shadowdianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I love you”; three little words that can be the end of a story or just the beginning. But what if we have already been saying them a long time before actually realizing what they mean? PostSeason4B Both Regina and Emma need to rebuild their live as they try to understand what their relationship really means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

[a/n This is a idea I've toying to do for a while based on the post of tumblr about a hundred ways of saying "I love you" without actually saying the words. Hope you all like it!]

1.- “Pull over.  Let me drive for awhile.”

The words are whispered, the voice broken and jagged because of the cries she had tried to dismiss a few hours back. Emma hasn’t exactly let anyone drive her car before and the logical reaction from her part, the first word that comes to her, is a “no” that gets lost somewhere inside her throat because Regina is looking at her with understanding eyes, eyes that shouldn’t been piercing at her because she is already hurting because of Robin and nightmares and many other things that Emma can’t really understand.

But when Regina asks her again and Emma still feels the inner turmoil inside of her, swirling, asking for something she can’t comprehend and Lily’s name flashes behind her eyelids she nods, a quiet, minute “Yes” and “Thank you” filling the car, the tears she had been trying to hide choking the words as Regina nods at her side.

And yes, they are not perfect but Regina asked for her help and they need to find Robin and Lily and just find answers instead of more questions so it really doesn’t matter who drives the old, yellow car. Only that now that she isn’t the one who does it anymore she can cry herself to sleep. Even if she doesn’t exactly cry because she still can’t do it in front of someone like Regina. But it doesn’t matter because Regina just nods and starts driving, her eyes glued on the road and her lips humming a soft song that makes Emma sigh and, finally, fell in a quiet bliss.

2\. “It reminded me of you.” 

They are in the middle of the road, back to Storybrooke with what looks like another problem on their car and her sister too close to her for her liking and Regina really wants to close her eyes and be able to use magic because she just can’t be strong enough anymore. Not with Robin, not with Lily not with anyone.

But she looks at her right where the blonde is looking at her and Lily is glancing between the two of them from the backseat and Regina can see her searching eyes, eyes that reminds her too much of Maleficent to be comfortable with, in the reflection of the rearview mirror and she just smiles and takes the little figurine of what looks to be an apple and even if it’s a really bad joke she smiles. Emma is biting her bottom lip while she does it and for a second Regina feels that she can actually breath and just be able to focus on something else apart of Robin and Zelena and Marian and many other things that whisper to her what she can and can’t do.

And yes, well, the apple looks silly on her hand but Emma’s own smile when she laughs again is also priceless so the two of them nod at each other, ghosts in their eyes and quiet smiles growing on her lips, making everything a little bit easier.

Even if it’s only a little.

3\. “No, no, it’s my treat.” 

Regina wants to say no, that Emma has already invited her too many times through all the days and weeks and talks the two of them had shared before they found about the Queen’s of Darkness and the author and everything else but she just can’t say no. Maybe it’s because everything is too blurry and too strange to even care about the fact that the woman in front of her is the daughter of the one who she once called her mortal enemy. Maybe is because during all those previous nights, drinks and talks Emma had already proven that she is something else than just the daughter of Snow. Maybe is just because she wants to drink and smile for the umpteenth time at Emma when the blonde explains to her once again how she managed to catch the first man once she started to work all those years ago.

It really doesn’t matter because she nods and drinks and Emma nods and drinks in return, a soft smile on her lips even if her eyes looks twice as tired as Regina feels. And yes, Lily is out there and the Author is there and Robin and too many things hung heavily between them and the blonde needs to be with that smelly pirate because Regina listened to the man complaining about Emma’s lack of availability a little while back but she doesn’t say a thing. And well, who cares?

So yes, she drinks with Emma and they talk softly about things that aren’t exactly magical and futures that aren’t written with quill and ink too ancient to even try to understand why they even exist.

And maybe, Regina thinks, those are the moments she really needs to start treasuring and collecting. Even if she still feels bad about Robin and angry because of what happened and what didn’t even start.

But well, who cares.

4\. “Come here.  Let me fix it.” 

Those are the first words Regina ever says to the wind, and she knows that she really can’t hear her, or maybe yes because magic and spells and summoning doesn’t always work the same. And yes, it is said between the broken sobs of Snow, the cries for help from David and the utter silence of the pirate and Robin and well, it can be seen as stupid; the fact that she isn’t exactly saying something to her or even offering real help to someone who can actually take it but Regna whispers it nonetheless as she approaches the abandoned dagger.

Her name written on the blade is, perhaps, the worst thing of all and as Regina grabs the handle and clutches it trying to feel something at the other side, something that can tell her that Emma is there, somewhere, the only words that escape her lips are the same, once and again.

She doesn’t know how she can help Emma, or if she even can fix what the blonde had done. The only thing she has in mind is the fact that Emma has given to her her own future, her own happiness in order to save her. And yes, is tricky and complicated and the whole town depended on it but the fact, the fact that Emma’s eyes had been looking at her puts a ball inside Regina’s chest. A ball that seems to be stuck just behind her throat as she chokes and whispers and mumbles and… well, starts to feel rage that grows and dies almost as fast as tears seem to be falling down Snow’s cheeks.

And she doesn’t cry because she really don’t feel that she can so when Robin pulls her closer to him she just nods, her hands still clutching the dagger, her eyes looking at something far away from her.

And yes, the only thing she wants to do is to be able to look at Emma and nod, just nod because the blonde only needed that to nod as well and smile and understand her. And maybe, she thinks, she wants to see her once again because now she feels strangely and completely numb, alone.

Lost.

5\. “I’ll walk you home.” 

The words are muttered and for a second Regina actually believes in them, believes that they are real. The illusion doesn’t work for too long though because she opens her eyes and founds herself looking at the ceiling with a sad smile growing on her lips and a confused frown on her brows.

She had been thinking about Emma ever since the woman disappeared, old conversations appearing on her dreams almost as if they wanted to tell her something. And yes, well, she really can’t see what they are trying to say to her because the dagger is hidden and Emma invisible for anyone but the words and that old conversation between the two of them seems to want to get stuck inside of her for a little more and so she closes her eyes and lets her brain think again about the night Emma said those words after a particular long night on the house they had thought to be the author’s.

She can remembers the way she had been yawning for the last couple of hours and the soft, yet shy. smile Emma had given her after saying her that. She also could remember the way she had wanted to told her “no” because she had started to spend the nights trying to not think about Robin or Marian or anything else alongside with a bottle of any kind of alcohol but Emma was there and she was just too tired to even fight with her anymore so she nodded and let her walk her home.

And she doesn’t remember anything else because halfway during her memory she hears Robin calling for her and she just sighs and turns and smiles at the man who she had let herself be with and just for a second, just one, she wonders and sighs and bits her lips thinking again on the bottle Emma herself hadn’t let her drink that night and the laughs and smiles they had shared over two cups filled to the brim with tea. And maybe those images are the worst because, as she hears how Robin’s breathing returns to the calm, sleepy one he had been having until a few minutes back, the only thing that prevails are the way Emma had looked at her; all trust and understanding and not, not pity because Emma never pitied her.

And yes, it’s probably the worst thing of all.


	2. Reunion

6.“Have a good day at work.” 

The words hit her the day after Emma’s disappearance when she enters the dinner and sees the table the blonde tended to drink her breakfast in with just enough time to arrive at the station before it was a little too late. It wasn’t like the blonde actually needed to be on the station because the only bad things that ever arrived at Storybrooke were through magical portals and occasionally through the town line but they always had the same banter, the same shared joke between the two of them every single day as she drank her dark coffee and Emma attacked her hot chocolate.

And well, it was only a shared smirk and her own voice saying those words with just enough sarcasm to let the blonde know that she was actually telling her the truth even if it wasn’t exactly like that before exiting herself through that same door towards the Town Hall or wherever she needed to be.

And is precisely that door the one that signals the beginning of a new day, a day in which Emma isn’t there, drinking her hot chocolate, looking at her and already waiting for Regina’s words. And Regina knows that is stupid to even care so much of a shared joke that wasn’t even one to begin with but when she sees the sad eyes of Ruby and the worried gazes of the rest of the patrons she realizes that yes, everything is different and the town is still standing but too precariously to even try to deny it.

And Robin is at her side with Roland and a tentative smile that she returns and tries to walk away from that table in which Emma had answered every single day since they started their own little banter with a nod and a wink. And at first everything was just rhetorical and the blonde’s answer infuriated her but now, now that she isn’t there anymore, Regina wants to turn and leave the dinner behind, like the yellow car and the perfume of the blonde that still lingers on her parent’s apartment.

But she can’t and she doesn’t understand why everything hurts like it does.

7.“I dreamt about you last night.” 

Is quite humorous the way those words hung between the two of them when Regina finally encounters Emma in outskirts of Storybrooke. Maybe even because the first thing Regina thinks is the fact that she has also been dreaming about Emma almost nonstop since she disappeared.

But the leather-clothed woman who is looking at her isn’t exactly Emma although the words sound sincere in a way that makes the brunette narrow her eyes and try to blink away her doubts.

And everything is still hurting and she doesn’t exactly know why those words burn the way they do and  notEmma is now tilting her head to one side and smiling sadly, like she used to do when she thought about a particular something that Regina couldn’t understand or follow.

And they weren’t friends, not exactly, and not partners, not entirely and they weren’t many other things that they could have been but as those words, whispered with Emma’s voice but without her candor hit her Regina clenches her jaw and walks towards her, almost wanting to be sure of how much of those words are really the truth.

And yes, is stupid and yet the only thing she can think off is “I also dreamt about you”

8.“Take my seat.” 

Emma wants to say no and walk away almost as much as just seat and rest, finally rest after days and hours of cold and water and fear and darkness. And she could stay and look at her parents and smile at a still silent Hook while trying to understand why Regina is looking at her the way she is doing; with fear and wonder and something else entirely that she doesn’t exactly want to understand.

But the offer is too tempting and the dark magic seems to have become silent after Regina grabbed her hand and so she nods and sits, smiling and mumbling a “Thank you” that the brunette can’t exactly hear although she nods and conjures another chair next to her with the same effort one would blink.

And well, there are a myriad of questions she tries to understand where they are coming from and a lot of hugging and crying and something that looks remotely like a sentence from Hook before everything starts to be too much and too little and the magic threatens to overcome her but Regina is there and so Emma tries to smile and be there for everyone else.

Even if, at the end, the one she is there isn’t her parents or Hook but Regina, the one who has offered her seat even before the rest finished hugging her and trying to make her explain why she feels different, how much of herself is still inside of her even if she isn’t exactly sure about how much she can exactly tell before the dark magic takes over.

9.“I saved a piece for you.” 

The words sound strange on the blonde’s lips but the way a tiny smile tugs the corner of Regina’s just for a second makes her exhale and actually feel more like herself than anything else.

It has been days since she had appeared to the brunette woman and everything is still too blurry for her to even understand why anger and fear seems to be the only emotions she now is capable of feel and recognize. Power and hate are there also, swirling on the back of her mind while trying to make her drown and she is still feeling as if someone had cut her in half and told her that she needs to be like that just because.

Words and murmurs follow her and it’s not a secret the fact that Regina is now the one who is there for the citizens so Emma is now free to walk and try to understand why and what she is, what and why she isn’t anymore.

Everything is just too complicated so maybe that’s why she is there, in the dinner, in her old spot giving Regina the las piece of chocolate cake; the one Regina would say is horrible and eat it nonetheless.

The trick with Regina is to never say anything against apples.

And yes, is stupid the fact that she had indeed being waiting for her to actually start eating her own piece of cake, cake that she had asked Ruby to made a few hours before, but is the only thing she can think off that actually makes her feel like herself.

And there are a lot of things the two of them need to talk about. Like Robin, Marian, Hook, like the Author, Merlin, Henry.

Too many names, too many complications that hurt and exists and just are in front of the two of them making everything more complicated than already is.

And Henry doesn’t exactly look her in the eyes anymore even if he is trying to help her and Hook has still try to contact her, fear and revulsion on his eyes and voice every time Emma tries to see him. And Robin is just someone who she really doesn’t like so much so the words hung unsaid between the two of them as they eat and look at each other.

Regina’s lips are stained with melted chocolate and Emma wonders about that fact as she tries to not run and leave Storybrooke behind, as she tries not to turn and left because she isn’t even one of them anymore.

Maybe it would be better if she disappeared, is a thought she has been toying with for a while. But if she disappear no one would ever realize that Regina also needs a break and just a piece of cake even if she states that she hates it or even if she tries to make a face as she take bite after bite not fooling anyone but wanting to anyway. So she doesn’t go.

Even if everything burns and everything feels so different that she can’t even really think of how things were before.

10.“I’m sorry for your loss.” 

The wording comes out wrong and so when the blonde looks at her, eyes rimmed with red and a tired look on her eyes Regina doesn’t even try to say anything to cover the sentence.

The two of them know that she is lying, she isn’t happy for Emma’s tears but she doesn’t see the pirate’s sudden departure like something bad.

Even with that Regina is being sincere with the blonde, blonde who is looking at the sea while trying not to free the magic bubbling just below the surface, close and strong enough for Regina to actually feel it. And the thing Regina can only think is that they aren’t exactly talking about Hook and Emma’s relationship anymore. Not that they talked about the fact that Emma kissed him the night she decided to trade herself for Regina. Not that Regina cares about it; they had just simply forgot to mention to each other because they aren’t the kind of women or friends who talk about those kind of things so maybe the wording is just strange because there is nothing Regina can actually say. Even if she tries to.

Regina knows that Emma is already thinking on something else, in a different kind of loss who she had seen reflected back at her too many times on her bathroom’s mirror to even try to deny it that she had seen it.

Loss, loss not because of the pirate, the one who claimed to be the blonde’s true love, but true loss, the one who makes the heart burn and the lungs choke while everything is crumbling and being destroyed by your own personal demons.

And Regina is sorry for that too because there is nothing she can do for Emma, that’s a path the blonde needs to take, alone or not alone, with her or with anyone else.

And everything still hurts and is complicated and illogical and she still can’t think what to do anymore so when Emma inhales and touches her hand for the tiniest of time Regina nods and hums as Hook’s ship disappears on the horizon carrying with him everything the brunette had hoped he would be able to give to Emma.

“I know”


	3. Adjusting

**11.-"You can have half."**

Henry looks at her when she says it and raised his right brow but Regina doesn't say anything until Emma blush and smiles as she grabs the tupperware with quick and long fingers that grasps the still steaming pastry and there isn't any fear or suspicion in her eyes when she does it so Regina decides to take it as a rare trophy she had managed to acquire.

Even Robin tends to look at her a little bit suspicious every time there is apple turn over for desert and although she doesn't say anything his searching pupils hurt her more than anything else. She wouldn't have tried to do the same with Emma but Emma has never pitied her, or mistrusted and so, as the first time after her appearance in which Emma had told her about the darkness and coldness she had experienced during the days she was disappeared she had decided to bake, even if it's a stupid idea.

The house already looks cold, strangely abandoned even if Regina keeps taking care of it and as the echoes of Robin's voice fill the place the brunette's back felt stiffer by the second; her own eyes trying to see something on Emma's, something else apart from what it looks like hurt and rage and fear. A deep fear that makes everything looks even less important than before.

And the house feels suddenly constricting instead of large once the blonde turns and smiles at Henry who hugs her even if it's too quick and too weak and not entirely honest and the smile on Emma's lips transforms into something close, too close, to a sob. The magic bubbles beneath the two of them and crackles once the door of the mansion is closed, darkness and fear circling Regina's heart, her own lips quivering because of something she can't really understand.

And there are too many things that deserve an explanation, a few mumbled words that they deserve to hear even if they don't exactly know what are those and so, when Robin finally shows up inside the kitchen and smiles at her she only can walk away not entirely sure of what to say him anymore.

Because Emma is walking down Storybrooke's streets with a turnover behind her left arm and without Henry at her side, because that could look like a victory but everything feels numb and strange and not entirely like it should feel anymore.

And as Robin hugs her and Regina tries to say something because the man has misinterpreted her expression, the only thing she can do is to look at Henry. The boy is already reading his comic instead of looking at her, his eyes searching the page as he decides to pretend that his mother isn't looking at him and trying not to cry as the other man keeps his grip around her, one that is more suffocating than anything else.

**12.-"Take my jacket, it's cold outside."**

Emma is sure that Regina hasn't heard her so when the brunette turns and looks at her , the words hanging on her parted lips, almost too close to say yes, she blinks and looks away. It's painfully cold outside and even if winter is still something quite far away the first lower temperatures are already hitting Storybrooke.

And Emma knows that Regina is perfectly able to choose a spell and just move away without even feeling a drop of air and is unreasonable to try to give one of her jackets to the woman who has so thoughtfully considered them unfit for the city's weather but the sun is settling and Regina and her have just finished the first lesson of magic after what had happened and everything seems a little bit too blurry, a little bit too bright and the only thing Emma can think of doing is offering her jacket just because.

And yes, the payment isn't exactly fair and she still feels the magic on her fingertips, her body trembling and reaching the point of exhaustion but she is getting better, focused, more like the woman everyone insists she once was and even if Regina has never told her what was right or wrong she feels the need to just give one of her jackets, maybe the blue one, as she walks herself back to her own home.

And Regina just smiles at her before looking back and forth between the interior of the house, the heat of it caressing and coloring her cheeks as she stays there, in the middle of the hallways with a strange glint on her pupils and something too close to be a yes for Emma to retire the offer.

And is only a jacket, Emma thinks, nothing else, nothing more, but when Regina shifts her pose and nods for the tiniest moments Emma looks at her feet and turns, grabbing the jacket and walking past her until the two of them are standing in the middle of the hallway, the door closing silently behind her.

Emma knows she should ask now, in that moment, where is Robin, why he hadn't come like Snow suggested he would do. She also knows that maybe she has just made one of the most stupidest things ever but when Regina looks away and shakes her head, a dried chuckle escaping her lips, she lets the brunette walk away as she follows, the cold air certainly biting her as Regina walks at her side, too close for Emma to feel her warmth but too far away for the blonde to even know what to ask or why.

**13.-"Sorry I'm late."**

The apology makes Emma's head turn although she doesn't move from where she is standing, her extended arms trying to control the magical threads that holds the whole tree together and as Regina steps a little closer to her, quiet steps echoing on the clearing, Emma's lips move upwards into something it had been too long since she had made her; a smile.

The brunette doesn't say anything although her presence is strong at Emma's side, the magic of the blonde reacting to it like it ever does; cracking and growing for a second before receding and moving away. The blonde sighs and glances at the brunette who looks almost in the verge of tears without actually crying.

And Emma knows she should ask, because Regina's eyes seems haunted and sad and just far, too far away from the little city she created 20 some years ago but she doesn't dare to say anything since she still is trying to recover herself. And she knows she is doing wrong, she knows she should ask why Regina looks so tired, so close to just give up, but she doesn't ask. Her magic is already growing once again as the brunette steps closer, her perfume hitting Emma's nostrils and making her insides, the ones that still crave dark magic, roar and grunt in mocking contrast of the thoughts that fills her head.

She should ask, ask why she is late, why she is there, barely looking at her but still trying to prove to everyone in the town that Emma is ok but she is numb to anything else, emotions still something she remembers but not recognizing them anymore and as everything else crumbles and the lights of their cars keep illuminating the two of them while Regina teaches her Emma thinks about how everything starts to look not so fuzzy and not so strange anymore.

And that's what scares her.

**14.-"Can I have this dance?"**

Regina raised her brow and looks at the blonde while she tries to keep sipping her coffee, customers looking at the former savior and the current one as the music Granny has put a few minutes before keeps playing on the back. Is childish, stupid, and Emma is doing it to make the brunette smile and maybe the best idea would be to just tell her to stop like she had done all those times before the author, before everything, in which the blonde just kept trying to make the brunette relax.

And well, Regina knows that Emma isn't capable of actually dancing, that she moves and is just that because it's not the first time that she had tried to dance, that she shouldn't even be considering the idea and that she should return home shortly because Robin is staying over once again. Something she is also trying to wrap her head about it.

And for a second she wonders if Emma is trying to make her smile precisely for that, precisely because of Robin and she knows she is being egocentric, stupid even because Robin is her true love, her happy ending, and everything else didn't really matter until it did and well, Emma is looking at her, a goofy smile on her lips. One that looks so close to the one the blonde normally had that for a second everything seems frozen in time, back in one in where nothing of what they now know was something they needed to worry about.

She knows though that Emma isn't exactly that Emma anymore and she certainly doesn't feel like the Regina she had been not so long ago so she just shrugs and looks at her, cocoa staining the blonde's lips and the song fading in the back of her head.

"Another time maybe"

**15.-"I made your favourite."**

It's a lame excuse, a poor one for a woman who manipulated entire reigns with only a bat of her eyelashes but when Emma looks at her from the spell she is trying to master and nods, all hard angles and dark shadows, she knows she has win this one.

It's has been a week since Emma's nightmares hadn't woke her up in the middle of the night and although the work they are doing is slow, painful and still played by ear the blonde seems to have started to recover her ability of saying yes or no without looking in pain. And the fact that it's a yes to the brunette's excuse is good enough for Regina, even if she doesn't know why.

Robin won't be there, she has asked him to sleep with the Merry Men for the night although she doesn't entirely understands why and the man had just shrugged and kissed her, the smell of forest and rain still clinging onto him no matter how many times Regina had tried to subtly tell him that he could do something with it.

She knows it's irrational the way her whole body seems to relax itself when Emma finally stands and turns towards her, her eyes still cloudy, not the bright green color they were once but getting closer to it every day it passes. She knows she shouldn't exactly need to think about the fact that Henry won't be in the mansion since he wanted to be with her grandparents for the night, she knows that everything is strange and not exactly the way things were supposed to be but as Emma inhales, magic drained from her body, she realizes that she doesn't want to think about it for the night.


	4. Learning

**16.-“It’s okay.  I couldn’t sleep anyway.”** ****

The voice is clipped; a yawn breaking the sentence in half and at the other side of the line Regina can’t do anything else but smile as Emma grunts and tries to sound as awake as the brunette knows she isn’t.

She doesn’t really knows why she had decided to call the blonde in the middle of the night asking her to just tell her about what’s on your mind, she also doesn’t understands why the blonde complies quickly and without asking why. Words about clouds that are cotton candy and rivers that are full of licorice soon fills the brunette’s mind, the raspy, yet soft, voice of Emma echoing through the line as smoothly as the younger woman is able to. And whereas Regina knows that being in the middle of her dark living room letting Emma tell her silly thing after silly thing is not exactly normal she only smiles and laughs a little every time the blonde yawns and forgets what she was going to say.

Regina knows that they could actually talk about why she is calling Emma, why she has her left hand over her chest where her heart stills beats erratically because Daniel has appeared on her dreams once again and she has actually awaken herself finding her body between the suffocating arms of Robin. She knows that she could actually answers the question Emma is thinking but is too polite (or too sleepy) to even try to ask, she knows that she should stop crying and just start understand what’s happening, why she has grabbed the phone first thing after detangling herself from Robin and, walking as silently as possible, had go down the stairs, seated on the first surface she had found and had decided to call the blonde just because, she knows she shouldn’t be doing this, she shouldn’t be feeling like she does because it’s shelfish and sad and wrong and it’s actually stupid to just want to talk with a woman that is obviously confused and still trying to find herself. But she needs it and maybe that’s where the problem lays, that she needs it and she doesn’t understand why.

Robin should be there with her, she should actually start thinking about telling him about Daniel, about curses that were made because a promise she made to herself back when she still thought that fairies could help and magic wasn’t as dangerous as it is. But she keeps forgetting telling him that, keeps telling herself that isn’t that important, that her past is her past and the only thing she needs to focus herself is in her future. But yet there she is, talking to a woman who doesn’t understand why she is doing this and yet…

And the moonlight is dim and Regina’s heart has started to beat slower, calmer, and Emma’s voice is barely a mumble now and Regina’s own eyelids starts to feel heavy and maybe, just maybe, is easier to just let herself go just for one night. Even if it’s a couple of hours that no one would ever witness. Just one night, just maybe…

**17.-“Watch your step.”**

The words make Emma sigh as she squints her eyes and tries to see something on the dark, wet sand of Storybrooke’s beach. Her feet are aching and her whole body is freezing so when the brunette repeats the sentence she almost wants to snort and close her eyes. It’s been a few weeks now since Hook decided to leave and whereas she still doesn’t understand what she should be feeling she has learn to hate being near the decks, the feeling of emptiness threating to overcome her.

She even thinks she can distinguish guilt and something close to relief while she looks at the distant horizon but she isn’t exactly sure anymore. She doesn’t know why she should be feeling relieved; they told her about how she had admitted the man how much she love him, how much she had even cried after the man had died on that alternative realm the ex-author created just for himself. She doesn’t exactly know why everything she is able to think is “finally”. It’ doesn’t really matter though because she is trying to grab some kind of rare shell to start her potion classes with Regina. And well, is not exactly easy to understand why the brunette keeps trying to help Emma with her magic now that she is slowly getting it back but Emma is grateful because of it, because the effort, the kindness Regina is even showing her by doing so.

There is some kind of ironic feeling every time Emma hears the people of Storybrooke whispering about how she is slowly getting better, how her eyes seems to be brighter, more normal. It hurts and it makes her want to laugh all the same because the citizens are only seeing what they want to see and Emma has long ago discovered she probably would never be like she once was. And it’s ok, mostly, because she isn’t sure exactly how she was before the magic, before the dagger. She can see it as blurrily every time she tries to think about it, a little like seeing a reflection on a river’s waters and well, is something almost impossible and just too hard to even think about fighting for it.

And heck, the shells and the sea and her discomfort aren’t important as long as she regains what little of herself she is able to so when Regina points at something glinting near the waves she just nods and walks there, her lips parting in a smile the brunette doesn’t returns but acknowledges by nodding quickly. And well, the fact she is still trying to not fall down her knees as another wave hits the sand very near of the two of them can be seen as ridiculous but at least she is starting to feel alive, normal. And that alone is something she really needs.

She knows that the fact she is standing next to the brunette when said woman told her how she wouldn’t be with her that night is also something she really needs to ask and question but she is still feeling afraid, afraid that if she asks about it Regina would only move away from her and just close the door they are slowly pushing aside. The midnight call, the tears she heard, the lump on her own throat aren’t important right now, even if it’s selfish and poor and weak, even if it’s a mistake, a stupid idea, she won’t ask about it.

Maybe later she decides as she grabs the shell and moves forward, water and sand hitting her skin and making her cringe as she hears a soft snort coming from Regina’s direction.

Maybe later.

**18.-“Here, drink this.  You’ll feel better.”** ****

The alcohol burns her tongue the same way Regina feels her tears starting to build up behind her eyes so she drinks the drink and closes her eyes while trying not to think about understanding and empathy and just a bunch of words that feel more like curses themselves than anything else.

The dinner’s counter is cold against her hands and that’s what she tries to focus on while Emma keeps sipping her own drink, her eyes burning Regina’s arm so strong that the brunette merely sighs and looks at her, remembering the times the blonde would show up on her office and hand at her a concoction she would call food and a root beer or two just because.

She is starting to miss those days and maybe that’s the root of the problem after all because even if her sister has already prove her wrong once such a thing like time travel isn’t easy or even safe.

Not like she should want to go back after all, she has Robin, Roland, Henry. Even the respect of that little town, a town who had spit on her as many times as she hurt them back in a time and a place in where she was the Evil Queen. Not like she is that person anymore, not like she wants herself to be that.

She is just too tired and too fed up and just wants to sleep and pretend to not have had a discussion with Robin, a talk in which the man had asked her to go with him to go to see Zelena.

And is kind of silly to feel weak and betrayed and at the same time deeply conflicted so she is thanking inwardly Emma’s way to make her feel better because drinking and talking is always better than cursing and magic. Not like she would tell that because Emma is slowly getting better and well, she is missing the obnoxious blonde even if she would never tell the woman that.

And maybe is because of that she had explained what Robin had asked her as quickly as she can, hating the fact that she feels weak and stupid at the same time. So she just drinks and sighs while Emma looks at her while muttering things under her breath and promising her that she is going to shove her hand up the man’s ass and maybe Regina shouldn’t feel relieved or happy or even smirk about it but she does because she needs to hear that she isn’t the selfish one there.

Even if, in a way, she still is.

**19.-“Can I hold your hand?”** ****

Regina’s words are soft murmurs thatalmost escapes Emma’s ears and in another kind of situation the blonde would even pretend to blush and look away but she doesn’t do that because the brunette is trying too hard and Emma is already ready to turn and leave the place with her in tow. And so Emma lifts her hand and waits since she can’t really say anything else because she had hated hospitals since Henry was born and being in front of the door of Zelena’s cell is just like ten time worse. And Regina has precisely told her once and again that she doesn’t need to be there, that she doesn’t want the woman to bother but Emma can’t leave the brunette alone in something she really doesn’t understand why Regina is doing it.

Because yes, Zelena is Regina’s sister and she is kinda carrying Robin’s child with a glee that would make anyone sane enough to feel a little bit nauseated but Emma still doesn’t understand why Regina, the woman who had literally decided to give Robin his own happy ending when everything seemed to be different, to actually be there in a reunion that is both disgusting and strange in a way that Emma can’t truly describe.

And maybe that’s precisely why Regina merely nods and takes the blonde’s hand with a strong and vicious grip that makes Emma bits her bottom lip as she feels the woman’s trembling body against her arm. A  different set of feelings flashing over her pupils as her sister looks at her, already showing and smiling and winking to a strangely looking Robin who barely says anything when the red-head torments Regina all over again.

And well, Emma could actually say something but she doesn’t know what to say so she just holds Regina’s hand and waits and shuts even after the crazy woman in front of her insults her and tries to tease her because she is there for Regina and for no one else, not for Robin who looks placidly speechless as Regina tries to hide her shame and definitely not for Zelena. And Emma knows that, despite everything, Regina loves Zelena much more that what she will ever be ready to admit.

And it sucks because family is something that you can’t truly decide, not the blood related one at least, and Regina’s deep fear is to be alone, alone with her thoughts, with herself, and well, Zelena is a reminded of that and Emma doesn’t know what to say, how to react.

So she just swallows and looks at Robin while trying to make him talk and rage already bubbling inside of her, rage that disappears quickly when Regina shakes her head once and then twice before putting her hard exterior back on and leaves the padded cell with Zelena’s cackling echoing behind.

And she is strong, Regina, not Zelena, and Emma sees that with blind clarity.

And maybe is because of that that neither her or Regina let go each other’s hand until they are finally out of the hospital, Robin behind of them and traces of tears threating to appear on Regina’s consumed gaze.

And Emma knows that she supposedly can’t feel anything else but rage and hate and power but that looks makes her want to hug the older woman and promise her something she can’t really promise anymore. And it hurts in a way that she doesn’t exactly understand why but takes her breath away.

**20.-“You can borrow mine.”**

If Regina would know any better she would told Emma that that won’t be necessary, that she already has her own car, that the blonde’s offer is something strange and maybe not the kind of thing she should so freely say while shrugging in the middle of their daily classes.

And maybe she also should just ask Emma to go with her because “maybe I need you” is still true and hanging between the two of them but she can’t really bring herself to ask that just in case the answer is a negative one.

So she swallows her response and tries to look away, their conversation ringing on her ears, the off-handed comment about her need to go out Storybrooke for a few days silly and stupid now that the blonde is actually offering her car to her.

And she knows that’s stupid, that she never leaves a place because that’s admitting defeat and she has been raised to not fail ever but she is already reaching a limit she didn’t know she possessed. And maybe is because of Robin and the way the man is pushing her about Zelena or the rainy odor that now seems to follow her even when he is not around. Or the guilty feeling she gets every time she thinks about what things were when he wasn’t around there. Or the fact that she is craving to go away and never look back.

And she knows that she will be back because Storybrooke is her home in more ways than once but for now she needs those stolen moments for herself. To actually find a place for her, a place in which people won’t know who she is, what she has done, what kind of responsibilities, nightmares and loneliness she has.

And is stupid, childish, but she is drowning and just can’t anymore.

“Come with me”


	5. Questioning

**21.-“You might like this.”**

Regina looks at the blonde with tired eyes, something close to a snort already falling from her lips. She still feels tired, and sad, and threatened by something she can’t understand and she doubts that a pastry is going to make her feel better. Even if it’s a giant one.

They didn’t abandon Storybrooke after all, too many things in the city tying them to it. Henry, the blonde’s parents, their responsibility towards the community. Too many things that make everything seem to be making her drown little by little.

The younger woman, however, looks at her with a shy smile and the pastry on her right hand, pastry that Regina briefly looks at it before returning her eyes towards one of the magic books, pretending to be searching some spell that the blonde needs to learn. Even if they know that Emma is getting better with complicated spells and she can actually understand them half of the time without Regina’s aid. Even if they know that Regina is only trying to occupy her mind for only a few more minutes.

The brunette is grateful though because Emma hasn’t asked her why she thought about leaving Storybrooke behind, why she had been seen walking alone every night without Robin at her side or why the man seems to have returned to the campsite the merry men had created not so long ago in the middle of the forest that surrounds the city. She hasn’t asked and Regina is grateful for that, for the simplicity the two of them can fake and exchange without needing to ask for it.

Absentmindedly, she finally takes the pastry and bites, making a face with the sugary flavor that fills her mouth, the white sugar never one of her favorites. The blonde at her side chuckles and even if it’s already cold on her vault and the only fire they have is the one from the candles Regina feels warmer than ever, some sort of relief making her able to breathe once again.

**22.-“It’s not heavy.  I’m stronger than I look.”**

The blonde looks at Regina who is looking at the things that are between her hands with sad, strange eyes that make her nods and keep with what she had been doing since the brunette asked for help.

She doesn’t ask why Robin is now gone, or why the brunette woman wants help to get every item the man left inside the house and take it outside, or why her nose wrinkles every now and then when they discover another thing inside the woman’s drawers but she keeps with the search, calling for Regina and seeing as the woman grabs and takes everything, pieces of clothing littering the beautiful white porch of the older woman who doesn’t look at it twice.

She doesn’t exactly ask why the former queen doesn’t let her touch the things or why she insists on being the only one who does the job, she merely hums, search and is at Regina’s side when another few things abandon the house, an inner part of her, one that she still doesn’t exactly recognize, tickles her insides with something she can’t decide what it is.

Robin appears almost at the end, when the sun is settling and almost no one is in the streets, looking of what’s happening. His eyes glowing with hurt and confusion as he tries to talk to Regina and the brunette merely shakes her head and walks inside, her left hand outstretched, as if she was calling Emma’s own one.

Is the blonde the one who finally closes the main door, Robin’s screams being scattered by the wind.

**23.-“I’ll wait.”**

The words leave Emma’s mouth almost too softly and for a second Regina thinks on pretending she hadn’t hear them. That she hasn’t hear or felt the way the blonde’s hand had tightened for a second before letting her go.

It has been almost a week after Robin, rumors, fairies and Snow already trying to spread, to talk and be heard by her and by everyone in Storybrooke. The words are constrictive but not like everything has been since Robin moved in.

Robin, the name is still a bittersweet memory on her tongue and as she looks at Emma, white, with unseen eyes, she almost wants to turn and left with her. The woman had told her once already that she hated the hospitals and yet there she is, for a second time.

She doesn’t exactly understand why she is there, about to meet with Zelena but the name of her sister and what she did doesn’t hit her as strong as before, doesn’t make her crawl and turn herself again on the woman she once was. And maybe that’s good because the red-head doesn’t even manage to attack her, her lips merely forming one single sentence that makes Regina want to swallow the pill she had decided to take “Robin was here before”

And Zelena doesn’t say anything more because she already knows that it doesn’t matter, that everything has changed or, at least, part of a something that Regina still cannot discern and so when the door is closed once again and her own turmoil threatening to grow inside of her once again she looks at the waiting Emma, her eyes changing from darker to lighter every few seconds and her skin looking still a little too clammy and still not entirely Emma but that doesn’t matter because she had stayed.

And that’s what matters. Even if Regina doesn’t understand why.

**24.-“Just because.”**

That’s the answer, silly, weak and completely not-her, that Regina says to the blonde in the middle of the dinner with their eyes locked into each other and cooling meals in front of them. The blonde hums, her previous question still hanging in the air, like the axe of an executioner.

“Why we keep doing this?”

And the question can be perceived as simple but it’s not because the two of them know what Emma is really asking and the two of them know that’s the first time Emma is actually showing something else but apathy.

But Regina doesn’t answer and lets the seconds hang, pass and go, until she mutters the quiet answer, one that Emma doesn’t buy and still lets the woman go with it. They didn’t exactly eat together before the dagger disaster; they didn’t exactly hung out as much as the blonde tried them to do. And maybe is because of that, because Emma’s own efforts, why Regina started to try the same thing the day Emma came back, to actually pass her time with the blonde those minutes during lunch, those minutes in where Emma didn’t need to fake how lost she felt.

Maybe that’s the reason of the nights at Regina’s house, the way Regina has actually eaten with the blonde a few morning in the same dinner they are now, maybe that’s the reason why they keep expecting the other to grab something, to walk next to the other as they approach the building. Maybe, just maybe.

And now, weeks later, Emma is better, the lies are less and far in between and the nightmares are more or less receding but Regina still goes with Emma to the dinner and ask for something to eat. Sometimes there is only silence, some other times they talk, but those moments are so normal that Ruby even has a place for the two of them now, never questioning why. Even though Regina knows that almost everyone is questioning their actions. Not because of fear but out of curiosity, curiosity of why, why her, why Emma, why Robin.

And maybe that’s the reason she answers like that, because as long as she doesn’t admit she doesn’t know why she won’t need to admit that she actually likes it. Too much.

**25.-“Look both ways.”**

Emma smiles at the slightly smug look on Regina’s face when she says it because the woman never trips, never falls and definitely she always looks both ways whenever she is crossing the road. The smile feels strange on her lips and maybe it’s a little too big and maybe her lips are a chapped because of the cold and air and the way she had been licking at them for the last couple of hours but Regina nods at her again and walks to the other side of the street where her car is parked.

Emma hasn’t asked the brunette why she is barely practicing her own magic anymore. She only assumes that the brunette is merely trying to not do it as much because of what happened. So whenever the brunette shows up and carries her to the vault with her car or parks the vehicle in front of Emma’s apartment the blonde merely shakes her head and walks alongside with her, always saying her the same phrase, the one that she remembers the woman telling at Henry every time the boy goes away for a little walk “Look both ways”

Is a way of showing that she cares, that’s what Emma has decided after a lot of thinking and asking herself why. She still doesn’t know or remember how that exactly felt but the shadows of her memories has come up with the answer ans she feels quite ok with it. Her words can be the way of showing that she cares for the brunette. And she had never been exactly a woman of words but considering the lack of things she now can do is always better to say than to remain mute and that’s how she keeps saying the same words, eliciting the same smile, making a mirror of it herself.

And yes, it’s a poor attempt but it’s one and it’s good enough. For now at least.


	6. Healing

**26.-“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to.”**  

The words are strained, filled with self-hatred and disgust that makes Regina sigh and shake her head, the pain already fading. She knows Emma didn’t want to hurt her when a blast of magic came out of her, she knows that she is simply forgiving  herself and learning about her in ways that almost no one in Storybrooke can ever understand.

So she just smiles and swallows, the panic of old attacks and punishments kicking inside of her, making her want to cry and ask for forgiveness to a woman that doesn’t exist anymore. And maybe it’s because Emma knows her too well for her own good but as soon as she smiles the frantic apologies of the blonde stops and she just stares at her, a look of deep understanding running between them.

The blonde is slowly getting better to see what needs to be bottled up and what needs to be said and so she nods and moves away after a second too long of staring at Regina, her hands lingering on the elder’s forearms just enough to make Regina feel more at ease in the middle of a forest that still looks too similar to the one they left behind, to the one in where Robin still lives.

“Don’t worry” She finally answers; her eyes dark and shy when Emma looks at her, a lump on the back of her throat. She is trying, trying to be happy without Robin, without Tinker trying to make her explain, without fate or maddening magic trying to find a way to make her feel miserable as it tries to make her bit the bait that Robin is. “It’s ok”

But as Emma sighs in front of her, magic swirling around their two bodies, Regina knows that the blonde knows the truth.

**27.-“Try some.”**

The words are light, effortless, and as Regina feels the stare of Henry on the back of her head she keeps looking at Emma who has grabbed the spoon she had offered her and had tried one of the new dishes she had been trying to perfection.

Emma doesn’t need to know that when Robin was there she never let him try anything first, she doesn’t need to know that she never smiled at Robin when the man tried to enter in the kitchen without her permission (Or in any other part of the house to be truthful). She doesn’t need to know that Henry sighed every time he saw her with him. She doesn’t and so she just smiles when the blonde nods at her, tongue darting between her lips, eyes focused only on what it’s going to be the dinner.

Emma doesn’t need to know every time they eat together Henry puts a plate without discussion, without questions. He merely does and nods when Regina informs him that Emma is eating with them that night. The blonde doesn’t need to know that everything feels domestic and strange at the same time. As if there was something there that they can’t exactly pin point.

“You are a god’s send” The blonde says and for a second it almost hurts how easily she could have mocked her a few years ago, how easy is to look and pretend that she is seeing that same woman.

Sometimes it would be easier to just pretend she still hates Emma, maybe only because she is starting to realize that she, in fact, doesn’t hate her and that’s what makes everything much more complicated.

At their backs Henry sighs but Regina doesn’t turn to look at him, already suspecting what she is going to see.

**28.-“Drive safely.”**  

The words make Regina smile, the motto starting to feel comforting and easy every time the blonde says it. Is something she actually enjoys, the word, the quiet smile, a smile she knows is still a little bit thin, a little bit fake, a little bit complicated.

But she loves the smile and the fact that Emma keeps saying it to her, no matter the weather, which is slowly turning warmer. No matter the time, day or night. The words are always there and is exhausting but comfortable and so she nods and turns, magic twinkling on her fingertips, asking to be released but she, as many other times before, refuses. She knows the painful feeling of power trying to make Emma fall. The blonde is an addict, and addict of the sins she didn’t commit but was forced to suffer and forever will be.

“As much as you are” A voice says inside of her and she almost wants to laugh because of the crude reality that truth shows, she is in fact an addict, one that still wants to cling in the idea of a true love, even if she has been told over and over again by fate and destiny that her true love implies her own destruction.

And yet… she longs for something, for Robin maybe, for the easy tasks that a prewritten love carried with it.

Biting the inner part of her cheek hard enough to draw blood she starts the car, briefly looking away where Emma is still looking at her, frail on the way she is hugging herself, strong in the way she keeps looking forward.

She is recovering, and if she can so does Regina.

**29.-“Well, what do you want to do?”**  

Emma needs to blink twice before she actually opens her mouth to speak. Regina had been quite guarded those past days and it has actually been the first day since they last incident with Emma’s magic that Regina had been the one to actually approach Emma and just talk. It’s quite a nice change and for a second the blonde congratulates herself to actually recognize the feeling, echoes of the person she was still resounding inside of her.

Looking at the inquisitive brunette in front of her she almost snorts, remembering the times she had longed for a friend when she could only seat and ask that same question only to be able to be next to someone. She wonders for a brief second if Regina knows that fact and is merely using it. She also sighs and wants to crush her inner dark self, the one who keeps telling her that neither Regina nor her parents care about her genuinely.

“How about a walk?” She finally answers and Regina nods, not explaining Emma where she comes from albeit Emma knows because the brunette hands are stained with the blood of the wounds she had opened on her palms with her nails, like every time she tries to see Zelena and listen to her. She doesn’t ask why Regina hasn’t asked her to be with her like the previous times, she merely smiles when Regina points out the little ducklings that swim a few feet at their right, in the lake near the decks.

It’s quite calming to be there and she lost herself in thoughts for a couple of minutes, being awakened from her reverie by Regina, who has started to hum tonelessly, her own eyes far away from Storybrooke. And maybe it’s the place, or the fact that she doesn’t know if she is actually losing her but she touches the back of her hand for a second, making the brunette relax on her pose as they remain caressing each other, even if it’s only for the a second.

And then, as quickly as it had started, the brunette moves forward, leaving a confused Emma behind her, not sure of what had just happened. But magic doesn’t erupt from her and Regina doesn’t look as lost as before so Emma decides to take one step at a time. For now.

And she wonders if the Regina had actually been for her, searched for her, because she knows that she has tried to reach for Henry only to feel strangled on the boy’s presence. She wonders if Regina hadn’t only been with her not only because of her own needs but for hers a well.

**30.-“One more chapter.”**

The words comes slurred and for a second the blonde wants to blush and hide away when Regina looks at her from the top of her black rimmed glasses, a teasing look on her pupils and makes everything better. Even Henry, still a little bit guarded but much more at ease, smiles a little because even if it has been his idea of making his brunette mother read to them one of the stories he had enjoyed back when he was a child is actually Emma the one who is asking for another chapter.

They are on the mansion once again and Emma doesn’t exactly know how many times per week she spends her time there. Her mother doesn’t ask about it anymore and it’s freeing somehow so she doesn’t question the fact that Regina always seem to nod to herself before letting her in, a brief understanding crossing between the two of them whenever Henry is also there. Emma isn’t sure of anything but there, in the middle of the brunette’s living room, with Regina’s voice telling tales about a rabbit that tried to steal the carrots of a grumpy man, she feels safe, secure, in a bubble in where she can ask and be sure she won’t be mocked of feared because of it.

And so as Regina keeps with the reading, her voice slightly rougher than when she started because of the time she had been talking, Emma moves closer towards Henry, the boy seated in the other side of the big sofa the two of them are and, after a second of hesitation, the boy scots closer, fifteen and still a child in so many things that Emma feels herself wanting to hug him and just sigh contently in the small bubble Regina had created for the three of them.

“Thank you” She thinks and her magic titillates around her, this time a bare glimpse that disappears quickly but leaves her finally breathing without regret pooling in every crevice of her body.

//The tale Emma is referring to is one of Beatrix Potter’s: The tale of Petter Rabbit//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next sentences:
> 
> “Don’t worry about me.”  
> “It looks good on you.”  
> “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”  
> “That’s okay, I bought two.”  
> “After you.”


	7. Forgiving

**31.-“Don’t worry about me.”**

The words, the implicit echo of stubbornness that hangs between them, is what makes Emma shake her head and sit right next to the older woman looking at the sea in front of her with the same stoic expression Regina possesses. She doesn’t understand why Regina has been trying to talk with her parents a few hours ago when she arrived at the apartment, mud and water staining her jeans and with three pairs of eyes looking at her as soon as she closed the door behind her back. Once she was finally inside the questions about where she had been, if there has been any problems, if something magic related had happened filled the void that had been growing between her parents and her since she had reappeared from the void she had been for so long she can’t even tell anymore how much and she had lost the opportunity to ask why Regina had been in the house, why her eyes had seemed to be filled with anger and tiredness and a mixture of something that she couldn’t quite understand any more.

Maybe is because of that, she muses as Regina sighs and rests her head on the palm of her hands, her eyes still filled, open, glowing like embers, why she had seated next to Regina even if the brunette has repeated the words once and again since Emma started walking next to her after Regina exited the apartment, her parents still trying to make Emma answer where she had been why she had exited without telling anyone.

“I worry about you” She finally says, softly, unsure if that’s really true or just another projection of the woman she was. It may be true though because when a smile curls Regina’s lips Emma own mouth answers in the same fashion, a wave of relief growing inside of her. Regina doesn’t thanks her though, she merely stays silent, the smile present on her lips and her eyes, now softer, mellower, look briefly at Emma, a brief nod making Emma hum at her, blushing slightly under those eyes.

Neither of them talk after that for a long time, it isn’t necessary after all.

“They thought you had decided to run” The former queen finally says after a wave licks the stone of the deck.

“I know”

Maybe is true, Emma decides, maybe a part of her knew why her parents had demanded questions. Even if a part of her still doesn’t understand why she should be giving those to them. Maybe is true that, like Archie said, everything she needs is time.

“I didn’t” Regina says quietly after that, her eyes focused on the sea in front of her and Emma opens her mouth, ready to say that she already knew that, in a way. But something inside of her makes her close her mouth and hum, unsure if her voice is able to say the fleeting thought that had crossed her mind for a second.

_“I would never run from you”_

**32.-“It looks good on you.”**

The words make Regina hide her eyes behind her eyelashes for a second, feeling incredibly conscious as Emma nods and tilts her head, as if carefully deciding if her compliment is really true. It must be because the blonde ends up nodding again and crossing her arms, in a way that makes so easy to say that Emma is still the Emma that once arrived at Storybrooke that Regina exhales and turns, unable to answer to her.

The color is not exactly one Regina would normally use but there is something on the red, the way it embraces her, that makes the brunette purse her lips, trying to hide a smile. It looks like something Emma would dress and maybe is because of that and maybe it isn’t but she finally decides to keep it on. The sleeves are maybe a little too long but that isn’t something she can’t fix and so she turns around again, catching the eyes of Emma looking at her, a soft-looking smile on her lips, and Regina feels as if she is seeing at something underwater, an image she shouldn’t be able to see.

Maybe Emma senses that too because she turns and leaves Regina with the blazer hugging her and the red, the ardent red, scorching her as if a fire had just started inside the fabric of the clothe, her nose burning with the smell of the blonde’s magic that suddenly seems to coat the air even if there is nothing visible.

Neither Emma nor her talk once they are finally alone again, the red blazer carefully folded on the brunette’s arms. Maybe is for the best, Regina thinks, after all she isn’t exactly sure what kind of words she would be able to say in that moment with the image of those eyes staring at her carefully, almost as if Emma was preparing herself to blink and see that Regina wasn’t really in front of her anymore.

Maybe yes, maybe is for the best.

**33.-“Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”**

The little key shines for a second as Emma squints her eyes- she really needs glasses Regina thinks- and tries to understand what the little piece of metal is.

“One of your keys” She whispers, looking at Regina, the forest framing her eyes that seems to be filled with something that she probably can’t even describe.

Regina nods because it’s true after all, the key she has just given her is one of the many more she once had. They aren’t important anymore and she barely uses them but they still work. She also doesn’t explain how she had passed the previous night searching for them in her vault, trying to locate even if it was only one of them. She doesn’t exactly want to say that she merely woke up in the middle of another nightmare with the need to search and find for one of those keys, wanting to giving them to Emma, wanting to make Emma see that she really trusts her even if Emma is still encountering people that doesn’t look at her like they did anymore.

Trust, Regina thinks, it’s a really strange think. She never had enough trust in anybody to give them the keys to her house, not even to Graham after years of a stilled time line, but there is something that only Emma seems to understand about her; the simplicity and complexity at the same time about Regina’s own thoughts. That has made the decision of giving Emma one of her keys easy, much more easier than it would really be.

They are on the dinner and therefore Emma bits her bottom lip and nods at her but Regina can sense the piercing eyes of Tinker and Ruby on both of them.

“The next time you need time” She says, quietly, remembering all those years in where she walked alone through the tall corridors of the castle that was both her home and her prison; the standing memory of the girl that crossed the doors with her heart breaking in two before she turned into a queen. “It opens both a hidden part of my vault at the end of it and my house”

“Thank you”

The words are soft and barely strong enough for Regina to catch them but she does and for a second when Emma looks at her everything seems less chaotic and much easier than what she had been seeing until now. And so she smiles.

**34.-“That’s okay, I bought two.”**

Nervousness is another feeling Emma is slowly becoming accustomed with once again and when Regina looks at the two pastries she is holding between her hands with a raised eyebrow the only thing that seems to grow inside the blonde’s chest is a ball of pure nervousness that makes her wants to swallow back her words. It’s strange to be able to look at someone without feeling lost or with a ball of rage and tiredness that seems to tint the edges of her eyes with black and red so Emma inhales the smell of the forest and smiles at the older woman when Regina finally nods and takes one of the slices of the cake she had bought on Granny’s before their “classes”.

Neither of them talk on those, not even on the breaks Regina makes her take every now and then, the softness on her voice more and more apparent as days passes. Robin is still disappeared, barely being seen on the city anymore and Emma knows that she still needs to ask about it but she guesses she still doesn’t need to do. Regina has stopped flinching every time they enter on the forest whenever they had their little classes though so she takes that as something positive. More or less.

They also don’t talk about the way Emma has started to use the key. Only a few times but enough for Regina to start leaving a blanket on the vault without asking. Emma still needs to enter on Regina’s house with the key though, and they also don’t talk about that because there isn’t something to talk about. Or maybe yes but they don’t want to.

The slice is cold but tasty and when Emma swallows the last bite she sees Regina holding out the last piece of her, the ghost of a smirk on her lips. “You can eat this, you glutton” The tease is obvious and Emma takes it for what it is; a way of making her feel a little better after everything. Even if she bought the original slice for Regina only who looks at Granny’s pies with hunger every time they go to the dinner.

It’s only in that moment, when she takes that piece from Regina’s warm fingers, when the act makes her remember a not so distant time in where they both met around a pastry on a particular dinner’s table, still too broken to even function.

They say that a person is unable to see its own improvement unless they are being told about it but for a second Emma sees the path she has already walked with absolute clarity and so closes her eyes and lets her own body relax.

Regina is looking at her when she finally opens them once again, a look on her eyes telling Emma that Regina already knows what the blonde was thinking about.

“Thank you” She says, enunciating the words carefully and Emma wants to shake her head because it’s not she the one she should be thanked for but the woman she has in front of her. She doesn’t discuss though, because then Robin is suddenly approaching  them and the brief moment –if that’s what those are still called- is broken and Regina swallows, a mask appearing on her eyes once again making the woman Emma is so accustomed to see disappear behind it.

**35.-“After you.”**

This time is Regina the one that opens the vault with her magic, her eyes stormy and tired and the only thing Emma is able to do is lay a hand on her back, ignoring her request, guiding her as she descends the stairs that led to the main room of the place. The closed place in where Emma has spent hours closed just like she left it a few weeks back in the far end of the not so secret place.

They don’t talk; they are there because Regina needs silence and because Emma is aware that if she is left alone she would let the darkness that still roars inside of her roam free.

Zelena’s baby is going to be a girl. Robin’s announcement, the way his voice has broken and trembled as he repeated the news to an astonished Regina still too present, too real too hurtful, is embedded on the two of them.

And Regina understand that she really doesn’t need to feel anything because she has started to understand and accept but as she moves through the vault with Emma right in front of her she feels the need to crawl and just close herself to the rest of the world that is still out there.

It’s not fair how much the information suddenly hurts, it’s not fair that Robin nods and looks at her as if he is waiting for her to say something to him, as if he deserves some kind of retribution for telling her what’s happening with her sister. It’s not fair and yet it’s there because fair things don’t need to exist. Not in a world in where fairy tales are real and heroes and villains seem to be the same these days.

So Emma waits until Regina sits and then she sits too, trying to be small, silent, trying to just be there for the brunette just like the brunette had been for her in the past months.

Maybe is because the rain from outside that seems to tint Regina’s mood or the way the simple act of breathing hurts because of the ramifications of what Robin has said and the way he had looked at her when Regina told him to go but when the older woman puts her head on Emma’s shoulder the blonde hugs her closer, not letting the older woman body go even when Regina finally breaks into silent sobs. Especially after that.


	8. Walking

 

**36.-“We’ll figure it out.”**

Regina wants to snort at that, to smirk and shrug and just forget what they are talking about. But she can’t nor she is able to do it and so she nods, her heart slowly choking her, obstructing her throat, the air on her lungs feeling poisoned every time she tries to speak, to voice what she is feeling, what she is seeing right now.

Emma seems to understand that tough because seconds after her nod the blonde’s right arm is circling her body as they walk past the reception desk of the hospital, curious eyes and badly hidden murmurs following them. She could try to feel something but she doesn’t and for a terrible second she ponders the thought of asking Emma to dull her feelings. She doesn’t do that though, one look to Emma’s green eyes enough to make her remember the night the younger woman had told her how much she would give in order to regain something of the woman she had been once. The price for having her feelings ripped away is too much. And she has endured worse things than just her sister about to give birth to the daughter of the man that so foolishly had been decided by fate to be her soul mate.

It hurts of course, it burns and it makes her want to cry in anger but she does neither when Robin looks at Zelena and beams, his smile growing a little at the same time Emma’s presence seem to darken at Regina’s side. That had been enough for the brunette and when she had felt her magic starting to react Emma had been the one who had grabbed her hand and whispered those words, the implicit promise of her being at the brunette’s side no matter what resounding inside Regina stronger than anything else, stronger than the voices that keep talking around the two of them.

She shouldn’t have come and yet here she is, being walked outside of the hospital mere minutes after entering with a silent Emma who keeps looking ahead, shadows obscuring her pupils.

For a brief second the images overlaps with one that makes Regina tilt her head at one side; the look of Emma, the strength that is seem on her posture, making her think again on the way the woman had looked at Tinkerbelle that time back on Neverland. “A pissed off mother” That was how Emma had presented herself back then and yet the one she had come inside Tinkerbelle’s house hadn’t been Henry but her; Regina.

Closing her eyes when finally the wind caresses her cheeks and the stale air of the hospital disappears behind her is the turn of Regina to grab the blonde’s hand and squeeze it, caressing the soft skin and nodding, knowing that Emma is looking at her. Yes, she thinks, they will figure it out.

 

**37.-“Can I kiss you?”**

The words float in the air but she doesn’t hear them. And maybe is for the best because they are burning Regina’s lips, her tongue feeling heavy and her whole body seeming like stone as she blinks and shakes her head, trying to understand what she is seeing, what she is saying, what those words mean.

Because they can’t mean what she thinks she mean, because if they mean what she thinks then…

Everything had started with Emma, with the nightmares that seem to pullulate her nights from time to time. And maybe is because Regina herself had asked the blonde to stay in the house before but the two of them had kept talking long before Henry had closed his door and has declared that he is going to sleep. And so, the first one refusing to admit that she fears the second she eyes closes and the second one unwilling to admit that she doesn’t want to close her eyes in case her mind takes her to somewhere she isn’t ready to see, had keep looking at each other, beer and wine between them.

And then, in the middle of the silence that cloaks her words like a spell her voice had uttered the words, words that can’t mean what they mean, can’t be what is making her whole body to ache and her lips to burn and her eyes to water.

No, it can’t be, it just can’t.

So maybe is for the best that Emma doesn’t seem to listen to her, her back turned back at her as she pours another drink for the two of them, her manners making Regina cringe a little but smile shakily when Emma turns back and looks at her, a soft smile tugging her lips. She is not Emma, not the same Emma that drunk from her cider all those years before but it doesn’t matter because she is not the same Regina so maybe is because of that that the words are there, floating between them, gyrating inside Regina’s head like a spell, a powerful spell, one that she isn’t able to conjure just yet.

And so she remains silent until Emma seems to think is already too late and leaves with a nod and an awkward smile, something that seems so hers that for a second everything seems to move backwards. But they can’t change the time, not again, and so when Regina blinks a few times the world stand there, unmoving, with the words, the admission, still glowing inside of her.

**38.-“I like your laugh.”**

The blush is there and for a second what Emma feels and recognizes as such is pride, pride because of the way Regina looks away as if trying to find something to say back, something to make Emma uncomfortable.

They are in the decks, looking at Leroy who seems to think that he is able to swim in front of Nora even if he can’t and everything seems strangely peaceful, an oasis in the middle of so many things that if Emma tries to list them all her mind starts to reel.

And so as Leroy comes back to the shoreline, spitting water and looking anything but a swimmer for the umpteenth time Regina laughs. Is a laugh of a woman who was taught to laugh softly in order to not look unlady-like. Is the laugh of a girl that didn’t have many things to laugh about. And for Emma is beautiful.

And maybe is too much for the Regina that seems to look at her strangely whenever she thinks Emma can’t see her, the Regina that bits her lips and stares and swallows and takes a breath every time Emma takes a step towards her since the second her admission is there Regina seems to be unable to find a retort.

She laughs a second time though, this time not so quietly, much more freely, when Leroy cries in fear when a wave hits him and makes him loose his foot for a second.

For Emma the sound is still beautiful and she nods to herself, smiling when she feels the gentle touch of Regina’s shoulder hitting hers, a quiet moment being shared between the two of them.

**39.-“Don’t cry.”**

The blubbery laugh that comes from Emma’s lips at that makes the blonde want to growl and hide even deeper on the jacket she is wearing. Is stupid to cry, she repeats, is stupid and egotistical knowing that the woman next to her has so much on her plate that she is unable to even have a few seconds only for herself to enjoy and reconnect with her mind and her son. And yet, even knowing that, here she is, crying, slowly realizing, learning again, what means to cry, what sadness is.

Henry is still weary around her but he is also there, touching gently her back, being the boy Emma fuzzily remembers from the memories of the woman she had been once. Is stupid to cry, she repeats, and yet…

She is crying, crying because she has found Snow weaving a blanket for Neal, the name still a burden on her tongue. And the former princess had looked so happy while doing it, gazing at her son lovingly, tenderly. His name written in blue, the color of the eyes he had had until a few weeks before when his eyes had finally settled on a beautiful sea green so alike David that it had hurt a little when Emma had realized it.

Is stupid, she repeats, and yet she is there, crying, crying because suddenly her skin had felt too tight and her magic –hers, not the dark magic that still exists somewhere inside of her- had took her to Regina’s, tears already falling, sobs already trespassing her lips. And is stupid, too stupid but Henry is hugging her and Regina is looking at her gently, softly, looking as if she hasn’t ruined one of the few afternoons that she had managed to escape the town and everyone else.

“I’m sorry” She whispers, but Regina acts as if she hadn’t said that because she keeps repeating soft words in front of her while Henry touches her, a warm glow slowing spreading inside of her chest, the dark magic inside of her recoiling as she starts to stop crying, tears already drying on her cheeks.

“How are you?” Regina says long after her tears are gone and Henry has disappeared back on the chair he had been seated on when Emma had appeared.

And is so simple and yet so complicated everything in that second that Emma merely shrugs, not wanting to destroy the moment using her voice, soar because of the tears.

Regina nods at that and lets her be, standing silently next to her until Emma declares that she is fit to go. They don’t talk about what had happened, nor does Regina ask why she is there. But the silence is enough for Emma, enough for the ache.

**40\. - “I made this for you.”**

It could be seen as childlike and for a second Emma thinks that Regina is going to tell her that but the brunette merely smiles, a blush present on her cheeks, as she takes on the little token Emma had made with her magic a few hours before.

Her white magic is coming back, not obscured by the dark magic anymore. They are still trying to understand the limits, what Emma is able to do and what not, what makes her dark magic to wake and what makes hers ,and only hers, to take control. Is a long process, one that Emma is trying not to think about too much since every time her mind start to toy with the options the hunger inside of her that is made of power and resentment roars and takes over.

The token is stupid; a stone with the emblem of Storybrooke on it, but is something that Emma has created, a thank you gift for the woman who hasn’t asked once why she had been on her house a few days before crying her heart out only to left without explaining herself. And Regina seems to take it as such because she closes her hand around it and nods.

Suddenly it doesn’t seem so difficult for Emma to breath and think, magic don’t screaming inside of her anymore.

Is easier, she thinks, to be there, in front of Regina, easier than what she would have thought about months before. And she is happy about it.


	9. Daring

**41.-“Go back to sleep.”**

It’s a whisper that Emma can barely hear but reacts to it regardless when she feels a body stirring beside her, the rustle of pages and Regina’s own scent making her smile and close her eyes once again.

The vault is not so cold anymore, not since Regina put a spell on it with her help and since then they had been spending time there, trying to understand Emma’s sudden change of magic; the reason behind the dark power weakening inside the blonde’s body. Blue had told something about Emma simply depurating the magic by herself but Emma is dubious and Regina had also a look of distrust on her eyes when the fairy told them that so they had been returning back to the vault, trying to find something, a reason why Emma is slowly turning back.

Maybe not turning back but feeling more like the woman she is more comfortable with right now and is both frightening and something else that Emma can’t really describe but is there, shimmering in the borders of her conscious mind, nervousness perhaps? That makes her want to keep going, to keep reading.

It has become common for her to fall asleep on the vault, her eyes closing when she finds herself reading books written on ancient tongues. The dark magic did solve that problem back when she was the dark one but now the words and alphabets are slowly becoming unreadable for her and more often than not she finds herself drifting away, her eyelids closing.

Regina always tries to not wake her up knowing her problems with falling asleep but it always happens that Emma finally wakes up and Regina asks her to keep sleeping, even for a few more minutes. Emma tries always to fight it but ends up falling asleep once again and she doesn’t really mind anymore, grateful that Regina still has to ask her about everything she has yet to explain, things that she isn’t exactly sure how to say.

A few hours later, when she finally opens her eyes again and crakes her neck, the smell of old books replacing the faint smell of Regina’s magic that coats the air, she finds herself covered with a thin blanket, Regina seated at the other side of the room with a thick book between her hands and a strange look on her eyes that, nervous, keep glancing at her, as if she is expecting something, a word, that Emma ignores.

“Thank you” She finally sets on, and Regina smiles shyly at her, something hiding behind her pupils, something that makes Emma frown and stare, the heat of the place suddenly too much, too filled with that magic, magic that months ago she would have be needing, wanting, craving.

She tilts her head when she realizes that the feeling is still there but not quite.

**42.-“Is this okay?”**

The question makes Regina swallow as she feels her vocal chords stirring, ready to break in two if she dares to say something. She hates that, it makes her feel weak, so she sighs and close her eyes, relishing in the soft touch of Emma, her fingers circling her forearm as the two of them look at Zelena, at the gloating woman who is so close to be a mother that everything on Regina’s mind is hurting, astonished that it had even passed so many months since she tried to rescue Robin for anything but himself at the end.

She feels nothing when her sister looks at her but a warm glow from Emma’s hand and she hums, her mind coming back to the night in where she asked for something she still doesn’t understand what it means. What it could mean for her, for Emma. Biting her lip she forces herself not to focus on the way Emma’s blunt nails are touching her, her fingers, long and strong, keeping her there, in the present.

She is going to be an aunt, she muses as she avoids Robin’s eyes for what is the umpteenth time. Tinker is still trying to make her see the light but Regina is already too tired of their so called prewritten romance and so she lets the searching eyes of the man roam free, not even daring herself to look at him, too tired of the dance they had been dancing only because some dust told them to.

(Perhaps is also because Emma’s presence is so real next to her that her skin seems to burn and crack under the immense pressure of magic and emotions she is feeling right now but she tries not to think on that, tries hard to not look at Emma who is still staring at her, looking at her with her green eyes, a soft glow irradiating from them as she tries to calm her down as best as she is able)

Little does she knows that her erratic breathing is not from Zelena anymore…

She sighs and clenches her hands, Emma’s strong hold helping her as she finally raises her eyes and locks them with Zelena’s. The woman is still showing them the photos of the last echography and she is too invested on her world to catch whatever Regina feels different on her at first but she blinks and there it is, a frown on her sister’s forehead, a look of something that it’s not smugness or hate but candor curiosity.

And maybe is because of that, precisely because of that, that Regina reaches for the hand that is still circling her forearm and gives it a squeeze, finally feeling herself able to breath, to smile, without trying to pretend she is somewhere else.

When they finally close the door behind them Robin also looks at her but she refuses to explain to him what had happened, still not wanting to say anything, still fearing of what Emma would hear.

She doesn’t think until she is halfway her house that is the first time she has thought about Emma in a way that confirms the kiss she has wanted so desperately to ask back on her living room, so close yet so far that everything has started to seem like a dream, a dream that she is toying with, unable to let it go, unable to forget it.

She feels strangely at peace with that information though.

**43.-“I picked these for you.”**

The second those words are out Regina wants to close her mouth and teleports herself some place far away from there.

She is completly lost in the middle of the station, looking at Emma in the first day as a sheriff once again. She vaguely remembers being a young girl looking at Daniel but now, holding a box of bear claws in front of the younger woman, she isn’t sure anymore of how to react, of what to say.

She is proud, that’s something Emma knows, but she nods and smiles at her, trying to arrive the message with those, unsure of what she is able to say in that moment. Emma seems to understand it though since she also smiles a little and picks the box, opening it quickly with the glee of a child.

“In case you needed to remember how to be a child that’s how you need to act” Regina says, pointing at the manner Emma is eyeing the pastries and for a second their eyes met and something so far away in time that it almost look like it happened to two different people shimmers between them, a fleeting moment of something alike and yet completely different.

“I would have never guessed” Emma replies, smirking, and it’s easy and painless and so light that Regina nods and swallows, amazed of how the phantom pain she had been feeling since she found Emma and realized that she wasn’t the woman she had known before, seems to be slowly fading away.

Maybe, she thinks, as she nods and turns, catching something close to fleeting longing on Emma’s eyes that makes her shudder, there are things that cannot be rushed, things that cannot be written faster than they need to be written.

**44.-“I think you are beautiful”**

The words come out in a whisper, barely audible in the middle of the breeze that makes the leaves of the trees around them rustle and crack. It’s so soft that Regina thinks if she hasn’t understand it wrong, if she is just making words now.

They are around the vault, walking back to the city while trying to not address Tink’s shouts towards Regina a few hours before when the drunken fairy had proclaimed that Regina is in fact losing her opportunity of a happy ending.

Even if Regina doesn’t know what to believe anymore the words still hurt, hurt like million cuts being reopened, like those ropes her mother created out of thin air. It hurts and it makes her want to curse everything around them. Even if she isn’t that woman anymore.

“I think you are beautiful” Emma repeats, her hands on her pockets, the breeze playing with her hair when Regina turns to look at her. And is actually comforting seeing that Emma is turning back to the curls she once had. “I think that Tink is mistaken, about your happy ending, about what you need to do”

And that’s not the Emma that once upon a time told her that she needed to follow her heart and go to Robin, this a different woman, a woman that is telling her that she is beautiful and a part of her, the part that seems to be resurfacing more often than not ever since Emma returned, glows inside her. She bites her lips, trying to hide a smile but she knows that Emma has seen her reaction and for that she looks away, blinking quickly, seeing the different shades of green of the trees around them, silence falling heavy behind Emma’s words.

“Thank you” She finally says after a while, the sound of Emma’s steps faltering for a second at her side.

And when she looks at Emma she almost could see the smile and the blush that the blonde is also sporting, almost.

**45.-“Call me when you get home”**

It’s the end of a very long week, a very long first week for a particular sheriff and the words come out of Regina almost instinctively as she looks at the way the woman yawns and grabs her car keys.

She had been on the station far too many times to even try to disguise them as causalities but Emma doesn’t seem to mind and when her sentence reaches her eyes she only grunts as a response, the lack of caffeine on her system obvious.

It’s strange to be there once again, the last time some blurry moment Regina can’t seem to pinpoint where it was. It’s strange and for a second her mind wanders to all those times where she waited for Emma back when the blonde was nothing but a deputy and Henry’s birthmother.

A lot has surely happened.

Emma waves her hand at her and offers her a ride but she declines and watches her go, the promise of calling her back when she is back on her parents’ house and even that is strange because the moment her mouth has said home the blonde’s apartment hadn’t been the image that had popped out on her mind. Not like she is willing to dwell on that though, not when Emma’s sudden change of magic is still bothering her, not when everything seems to be slowly turning into something she would have never guessed.

She groans and stands there until her phone chirps, a little smiling emoticon looking back at her from the screen, a lightness invading her chest.

She doesn’t answer though.


	10. Seeing

A/N And with this chapter we have finally reached the middle of this story! Thoughts about it anyone?

**46.-“What do you want to watch?”**

At first Regina thinks that Emma is asking Henry but when the blonde nudges her shoulder she blinks and looks in front of her where the teenager boy is already buying some popcorn for the two of them.

It had been Henry’s idea, to go out and cross the line and just be the three of them without anything to worry about. A family, he had said. And neither Emma nor Regina had had words for that. Or ways to tell the young man no. They craved some time alone, aside from the town and so they had nodded and accepted the boys offer.

Regina had been dubious, Emma worried when they had approached the line, unsure of Emma’s magic, of the outside world but at the end when Regina had finally driven them to the other side Emma had grabbed her forearm and had given it a squeeze, conveying on that single movement what the silence inside the car didn’t tell.

Henry had seen the gesture but hadn’t say anything, not after Regina’s pointed glare after the teen had coughed pointedly. Emma hadn’t turned, her eyes lost on the road, perhaps thinking on the life she had had once upon a time.

Regina smirks sadly at the idea for a second before pointing at the first poster she sees in front of her, not really into the whole movies thing.

And Henry had known that, had looked at her when he proposed the idea, had known that as he stared intently at her and Regina thinks again that the boy is maybe growing too fast and he already knows things she still can’t seem to wrap her head around.

Like the fact that Emma seems lighter outside Storybrooke, that her dark magic is weaker than ever, that they seem happy, truly happy, after years full of worry and stress and fear.

So she sees the movie and laughs at the right moments and stares at Emma when the woman’s laugh booms all over the place, making a few kids in the row in front of them turn and stare and Regina would have say something in another time but is the first time she hears that Emma and so she chuckles alongside with her, looking at Henry and thanking him.

Is strange to pick up the car once again and cross the border again, the light duller at the other side. But they do it and when Regina’s car finally stops and Emma exists they look at each other for a second that it may be too long before the blonde walks away.

It’s sad, but not heartbreaking and Regina likes the simplicity of that.

**47.-“You can go first.”**

Emma looks at the door in front of her and swallows, not entirely sure if she is even able to take the step Regina is offering so graciously.

They are looking at new apartments and Emma is starting to get to the point where she can look at anything anymore, everything looking the same to her. If it was for her she should have never started even but Regina had kept pushing and listenging and Emma knows she needs to move back and start doing what she had been thinking about since she came from New York.

And Regina gets that and is because of that she has been insisting on helping Emma until the blonde had accepted, eyeing wearily the long lists of places Regina had written down.

And it had been a nightmare seeing one after the other, trying to see everything Regina keeps pointing out, trying to imagine herself living on her own again-Henry has offered to come from time to time and the wording had stung but healed at the same time and Emma doesn’t want to complain.-

When she finally crosses the door and looks inside the apartment she knew that it’s the one; comfy, little, she can imagine living her, can imagine having some kind of live away ad yet not alone. It feels like home, like a place she can call her own and when she turns and looks at Regina the woman is already nodding, a soft edge on her eyes.

Is in that moment when Emma is transfixed, completely taken away because of how Regina is looking at her; understanding and relief and something close to pride and her mind goes back to the time they were enemies and Emma almost wants to cry because if she had known who the woman in front of her would turn out to be she would have called herself insane.

And yet there it is.

“I want this one” She says and for the second time in Storybrooke she feels like home once again.

**48.- “I’ll do it for you.”**

Emma looks at her hands the second the words are out but looks back at Regina second before, still a little bit uncomfortable to be seen in public alone, the mere notion of it making her want to disappear.

But she knows she needs to do it and she knows that even if Henry is already able to go back and forth between his home and the school whenever he goes out Regina always goes to pick him up. The boy is already starting to complain but Emma understands Regina’s wish of being the boy’s mother, for being there for him even in such a thing like that.

She also knows that Regina needs help, that Henry is growing, that she is also there, that she promised to be there and maybe that’s the reason why she offers to be the one for him after Regina mutters something about needing to help Granny with some minute magical problem. Is quite strange listen Regina helping others so easily and without problems and she is still learning how much Regina did for the town while she was away but is something that makes her smile, even if it’s a nervous one.

The brunette blinks and looks about to say something but Emma shakes her head. “I need to start doing that again” She offers and Regina understands.

“I will give you the address” She replies and they smile at each other, savoring the sense of easiness that lays behind those words.

Emma doesn’t thank Regina but she knows that the brunette knows she wants to.

**49.- Are you sure?”**

Emma knows she isn’t really sure, that she really isn’t sure of what she is going to say to her parents or how she is going to talk with them about the fact that she needs to move out but she nods and takes a deep breath.

There are a lot of things she doesn’t understand yet, doesn’t know about herself, but she needs to start taking steps, moving towards things she feels that where there before her transformation, at the other side of the cotton barrier she is finally starting to destroy.

“They are not going to like it” She says and she is suddenly reassured by Regina’s chuckle, the shadow of the sassiness the other woman keeps hidden in front of her.

“That’s the reason why I came, to be able to see your mother’s face” The former queen answers and even if the two of them know that’s not true, that Regina came because Emma called and was even offering to be there before Emma managed to say something Emma nods and gives the older woman’s wrist a squeeze before opening the door, a warm feeling on the back of her neck where she knows Regina’s eyes are set.

**50.-“I’ll drive you to the hospital.”**

Emma knows Regina can poof herself but wants to be useful and so she grabs the keys of the car and turns to look at Regina expectantly, the older woman still looking at the short message on her phone.

Zelena, Emma still doesn’t understand everything about Zelena, about the whole story. But she has been going with Regina as long as the woman had asked her to the days in where Regina could visit her sister and had been waiting outside the days Regina had considered that she could go alone. And maybe that’s why she, even if she really doesn’t want to, is a little bit concerned in the detached way she seems to think about others nowadays.

Is reassuring in a way, to be useful for Regina even in such a tiny thing and so she smiles and waits and grabs the brunette’s hands between hers when Regina shakes her head and murmurs that she isn’t ready and there is that second in where they don’t talk about the things they should but they both can sense that they need to and Regina sighs and lays her forehead on Emma’s shoulder quickly, too quickly, before she moves away.

They need to go to the hospital and so Regina sits at Emma’s side and Emma drives, silent, unable to put in words what she has just felt.

What she has just desired, what she has just wanted. To protect, to be there, to be able to fight, like she did once, in the middle of a dark road where everything was as easy as deciding who she couldn’t live without. And the final piece of the puzzle she has been unable to understand about that part of herself is finally there, standing proudly in front of her eyes.

Is frightening and she can’t think about it now so she shakes her head and when they finally arrive and Regina is asked if she wants to be there as the only family member Zelena has Emma doesn’t move and nods reassuringly at her when the brunette stares at Robin for a second who appears to be there, waiting as well, before she looks back at her and asks for permission with a look that makes Emma tremble and nod.

Is not the time, the moment, but the thought is there and while they hear Zelena’s screams Emma waits, and thinks.


	11. Stopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the little hiatus ^^’’ With the whole Halloween specials I couldn’t make time to write this story but now I hope to finish the fic before the month ends! Hope you like this chapter!

**51.-“Have fun.”**

The words sound needy even to Regina’s ears and for a second she almost blinks and looks away, embarrassed by her own selfishness. A trait she had always considered weak.

And yet, there it is, haunting her words, words that Emma hears but looks as if she doesn’t really understands by the way she keeps looking at her, something pushing inside her pupils, a crack on the aloof behavior she had been showing since her return.

She had been like that since Zelena happened, since Regina was forced to go and see her sister deliver her baby, wait and see and look and hear while Emma waited at the other side, unmoving. And she is still able to remember how Emma had smiled vaguely at her when she had returned from the other room, pale and tired and old wounds reopening again, eyes searching for Emma who had looked at her hands for a second before searching her eyes once again. That crack, that growing shyness, looking back at Regina from the first time.

It had been a week and Regina can still see that something  is on Emma’s pupils, something that makes her want to swallow and ask, ask what’s about, why Emma looks like a minute away from exploding, for pulling away and run, run from Storybrooke, from her family, from her.

And maybe it’s the fear of whatever it is at the other side of the carefully constructed ice wall Emma had had on until a few days ago but her fear is rooted and hovers between her and Emma whenever she and the blonde are close. Not that they are constantly together, not that Regina has started to consider the words that threatened to escape her mouth all those nights ago. But the fear is still there, a fear that she doesn’t understand, that doesn’t want to understand.

And yes, she is selfish because while Emma needed her help she had the image of herself moving forward and now, inside her home, looking at the blonde who had come to say that she would like to go without the classes for today since Snow wants to go out, she feels as lonelier than ever.

Apparently, she thinks as she smiles reassuringly at the doubt that is on Emma’s face, she has indeed become accustomed to the blonde’s presence.

Selfish, her mind whispers, Cora’s undertones echoing on the back of her head. Selfish and stupid. As stupid as she felt when Zelena looked at her baby for the first time and smiled, every piece of hatred her sister possessed disappearing for a second like she could remember doing herself back when she first saw Henry. Selfish.

Selfish because since that damned day something is not the same with Emma; as if the blonde had acquired a new awareness, one that makes Regina wonder if with the blonde’s moral compass return there will be a loss of the fragile and strange relationship the woman and her started to develop from the day she found her on the woods. Not that she can actually think of a thing that can make Emma look at her like she does but old fears never disappear, not entirely.

And Emma looks about to stay with her, her hand moving towards the pocket where Regina knows the blonde’s cellphone is, ready to call the dinner off Regina knows that the blonde needs that dinner as much as Regina needs to start facing her own errors, her own words.

“Have fun” She repeats, nodding and tilting her head to one side. And they both know that Emma would do well even without a class but they stand there for a few more seconds, as if expecting that the other actually objects to the idea, objects to an afternoon without the other.

They don’t say anything of course and Regina stares at Emma’s back once the blonde nods and turns, letting the brunette’s main door close behind her, her hands clenching at her sides.

And Regina finds herself staring at the younger woman thinking on Zelena again, on the story that her sister herself is writing with the sheer power of will she has and she almost wants to laugh because is preposterous missing Emma like she does or fearing like she does or even thinking like she does.

But she still does it.

**52.-“Sit down, I’ll get it.”**

Emma picks up the phone for the station with the caution of the one who is still becoming accustomed to a place again and Regina almost want to smile a little at the awkwardness which with the blonde looks at the phone and answers with a slightly scratchy voice. Almost.

They are still eating together, Regina actually amazed by how much she actually likes those moments along with the blonde even though the woman is still looking at Regina with that same shy expression that makes Regina want to bit her lips, uncertainty still hovering over her.

It’s only when Emma’s facial expression change when she blinks and tries to hear the conversation happening at the other side of the phone, her eyes widening when she catches Robin’s voice and her name being tossed on the line.

“He wants to talk with you” That’s what Emma has to say when she hangs up the phone, her face a mask, her eyes growing cool and detached and something that bleeds in the same way Regina’s throat is suddenly too dry to talk.

“Does he?”

And it’s both ridiculous and so very Emma for her to nod and stand, playing with her hands nervously as she nods again, pointing at the phone with her chin as she does it. “He called your phone but since you didn’t pick it up…”

“He called you instead”

Emma doesn’t answer to that, she merely grunts and nods before approaching the window, the force behind her pupils, that little something that Regina had been seeing since the day Zelena become a mother, coming out on silent waves of something that Regina does not understand, doesn’t want to understand.

“I think I should see him” She finally says and the silence is heavy and full with too much questions but she merely licks her bottom lip as the words she said and Emma didn’t hear come back once again, the possible outcomes playing on the back of her mind in the same way she can almost imagine herself moving closer to Emma and lay a hand on the blonde’s back.

And she doesn’t know why there is too much tension between the two of them when days before everything was normal but there it is and she doesn’t know what to say or what to adduce when she hasn’t ever actually explained Emma why Robin moved out of her house months ago.

Not that she knows the answer for that.

And so she stands and moves closer but keeps herself a few feet away until Emma’s voice make her jump a little. “Will you be ok?”

And Regina finds herself nodding because yes, she knows that she will.

Even though Emma’s haunted expression is something that certainly makes her much more anxious.

But she doesn’t ask.

**53.-“I made reservations.”**

Emma swallows the bitter taste of jealousy when she hears Regina’s voice at the other side of the line, the brunette’s voice making her clutch her phone tightly as she offers a non-committal hum while she tries to find her own voice again.

It’s curious, she wonders for the umpteenth time as she stares at the last box of her belongings and winces, remembering a time in where that single box would have been her only box of memories, is curious how now she can call what she feels by a name even though she still doesn’t sense the emotions fully. Is curious how everything she has need to make that step is listening to Regina talk about her meeting with Hood. Is curious how jealousy is making her insides churn and a part of her desire to just hang the phone and run.

Because it’s the only thing that keeps appearing on her mind; running, moving away from the problem and never come back. Never come back near the woman who makes her tremble and remember of the time she wasn’t the savior, the sheriff, a mother, where she wasn’t either an ex-con or even an orphan but just Emma. It’s funny and it stings and she almost wants to crash her phone with her magic but keeps it at bay after a few seconds of utter panic.

Regina had never offered information about Robin and herself not that Emma has ever tried to even ask the older woman about the man but now the reality that Emma barely knows something about the man stands out and makes Emma feel nauseous.

And the cruelest part of her want to ask Regina why, why is she meeting him again. But she also knows that the answer is as difficult as the reason that Cora asked her to explain back when Snow and herself where in that damned prison and the only thing they knew was that there was a wraith dead and Mulan and Aurora knew each other, is difficult and complicated and not a story but a mix of different tales that she isn’t sure if she ever wants to know so she just nods at the telephone and keeps listening at Regina’s voice, at the way the brunette woman’s tone falls and rises softly, effortlessly.

And she swallows and keeps thinking on the realization that had hit her back on that hospital, the sudden truth that had make her almost want to come rushing inside Zelena’s bedroom and just be sincere with Regina. Almost.

Because then Hood had appeared from inside the room, his face pale and his eyes haunted and Emma had saw the lion tattoo and had remembered Tinker’s voice telling her about the man, about fate, about things that shouldn’t change. And she still doesn’t know about Robin, about Regina, but in that moment everything had frozen and Emma had been unable to take that first step that was between Regina and her.

And now, as she hears how Regina explains how they are going to go to a restaurant –the same Hook made her go to- and how she doesn’t know what to expect she wonders, wonders if it would have make a different. Or if she is just deluding herself.

Probably the second she decides as she closes her eyes and lets her free hand scratch her forehead, Regina’s voice still on her head even after the woman has already ended the conversation, the phone line dead.

Stupid, she thinks, and selfish.

**54.-“I don’t mind.”**

The tiredness on the blonde’s voice makes Regina looks away and close her eyes, explanations bubbling on her tongue as she feels her magic swirling below her skin, the classes on full force once again.

She doesn’t have a lie detector, she doesn’t even know if she is good at finding when Emma lies to her as the blonde herself claims being able to do with her, but she is almost sure that Emma is telling the truth. At least that’s what she hopes.

It has been a week since Robin’s attempt of courting her and Emma has been carefully avoiding the subject about the date as much as Regina has tried to not think about the blurted information she had let pass her lips about how the man had already lost her opportunity back in the restaurant when he had asked her about her decision, about their past and future.

“Are you seeing someone?” It has been the question that had come after Regina’s “no”. And Regina hadn’t answered because she hasn’t know what to answer. Or if she was even allowed to think about it.

And maybe is because of that athat she has been trying not to mention Hood around Emma in the same way Emma didn’t told her about Hook.

And she wonders also if she is just being childish with that or if she is just tired, tired of worrying about Zelena’s future, about her own future, about the baby’s future far more than she had promised herself she would. And maybe she just needs to process everything. It doesn’t matter at the end.

And is Emma, Emma, who looks seconds away from bursting into flames, her magic too strong but yet void of the darkness it once possessed, the one who makes her breathe even if she is still unsure of what’s happening between the two of them, of why she keeps dreaming about the kiss she asked, the kiss she desired, the kiss that is haunting her memories like a ghost.

“Are you sure?” She asks only to be sure and she almost caught the blonde smiling painfully at her.

“Yes, cleaning the vault would be cool, at least if you let me hold that dragon’s claw you didn’t let me touch the last time”

And the banter is there and the easiness seems to have returned and Regina smirks and replies at the woman next to her and for a second, only for one second, she considers if things couldn’t be like that, if things couldn’t be less complicated than they really are.

**55.-“It brings out your eyes.”**

The compliment is out before Regina can process what she is saying but Emma’s blush is even quicker to appear as she puts away the faded green jacket she has enter on the dinner with, a shade of red still on her cheeks as she calls Ruby, her green eyes swirling darker for a second as she catches the magical nature of the werewolf who smiles at her and looks unimpressed to that weak display of magic.

“I found it on a corner of one of my boxes yesterday evening” The blonde finally offers while Regina nods at her, smiling a little at the memory of Emma finally entering on her own apartment a week ago, smiling broadly and looking every bit as the child-like version Regina once met than anything else. “I just felt that it was time to drop the red”

It’s said in a light voice that almost betrays the deep undertone of concern that those simple words hide. The red jacket doesn’t have any powers, both Emma and Regina know that, but for Emma the red jacket had been her trinket all the way her days as sheriff and savior of the town. And since she returned that jacket, the one who Regina called hideous more times than she herself was able to remember, had been waiting for the blonde, almost unused.

“You still dress like an overgrown child”  She says trying to make Emma react and for a second she manages to get a smile and a grunt from Emma who thanks Ruby with a nod and takes a bite of her bear claw, a content hum escaping her lips as she does.

“Ditto” The brunette murmurs while looking at her coffee, her mind replaying the second Emma has entered the dinner, rosy cheeks and eyes framed with her blonde hair; certainly beautiful in every sense of the word.

And as Emma eats and she drinks she feels Ruby’s eyes on her, a small smile on the waitress’ eyes when she returns her gaze, something looking a lot like comprehension shining there, hidden but not enough and she wonders when she had become so obvious.

She realizes that she truly doesn’t want to know the answer, not when Emma is still looking at her with a mix of awareness that looks like her own and fear that makes her want to look away. Not when she still doesn’t understand why every time she now think about Robin and fate Emma’s face comes to her, not when there are still too many things that she still doesn’t understand, not now.


	12. Flinching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -sings- Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…
> 
> A/N This was thought to be the day of the anniversary of the first episode of OUAT but well, live happened and I couldn’t finish the story when I wanted to. Just an info due to entry (58)

**56.- “I will pick it after work”**

The words barely reaches Emma’s ears and Regina sighs, not knowing what else to say or if she even has a right to say something. Emma simply nods and looks away, shame still on her eyes, her burned hands telling much more than her eyes or unsaid words though. And that’s the reason why Regina keeps looking at her, talking about ointment and treatments instead of actually asking Emma why.

Why she had tried to practice alone, why she had burnt her hands, why she doesn’t want to say anything or just explain the amount of power she surely have needed to cast such explosion of power. Simply why.

And a part of her half knows the answer but there are still too many things near the dinner they had shared and Emma’s green jacket is still somewhere on the blonde’s car and there are things dancing on the back of Emma’s pupils that shouldn’t be there and she certainly shouldn’t be searching for.

Emma sighs and opens her lips and Regina is sure that this time she will be strong enough to listen and ask but the blonde merely stands and looks at the remains of the trees she had burned down.

Jealousy, hate, love, emotions as powerful and old as life itself. That’s what creates magic, that’s what controls power.

Regina wonders what kind of emotion could have set Emma’s magic off after weeks of progression. She wonders and hopes and sighs and remembers too vividly once again that night and what brought her.

But, at the end, it’s only that, thoughts and, as she had tell Emma a few hours before, she will have a date again with a man that she is sure it’s not for her.

Destiny and fairy powder still weighs too much, still holds too much power and that’s the reason why she only lets herself think. And hope, and swallow, remembering the time in where she thought that she would be able by riding away and just be herself no matter the costs.

**57.-“There is enough room for both of us.”**

Emma bits her lips the second the words are out her mouth because she doesn’t know what to expect, from Regina and herself. The night outside her still too empty and still too new apartment is dark and cold and there are too many memories hidden there, memories of a night almost like the one they are in, like the one in where the sound of the wind almost seems too loud to not be magically-created, almost.

Clutching her hands around the blanket she had been using until Regina had knocked on her door she looks once again at the brunette woman, at the beauty the woman radiates almost effortlessly. And the tears, the helpless look on her face, the hurt and the too old, too deep scar that seems to always be there whenever feelings surface, partially hidden but not well enough for Emma.

Henry is all right, she knows that because the boy is with her grandparents and magic, as much as she loathes that word now, is quiet, both inside her and outside. And she knows, because she is painfully aware that the reason why she had been looking at bad films with a blanket around her ankles instead of doing something else is precisely because of that same reason, that Regina should be somewhere else.

With Robin.

She doesn’t ask, she really doesn’t want to ask because the second the question is out so does the answer and she doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to think about what she realized back on the hospital, what her mind don’t seem to be able to let go, not since… since the vortex, since she appeared once again, since she started healing, since everything.

But Regina is there and looks tired, too damn tired, that the only thing she thinks about is offering her half of her sofa, tv still on and the muffled dialogues of some white blond boy and an equally white blonde girl fill the silence that hung between the two of them, almost like the silent admission that everything is not like they both should like but it still exits either way.

So Emma doesn’t ask and Regina nods and sits, her eyes finding the tv and her lips almost parting into what Emma is sure would be a joke about her film preferences. Albeit this time Regina doesn’t say something and merely looks away, a sigh escaping her lips instead.

“I tried” She finally says “For Tink, for that old me”

Emma doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say.

“I can’t” Regina mutters with finality on her voice. “I tried to but I can’t, I won’t”

Emma isn’t sure of what those words mean, even if she wants to believe that she has an inkling and not false hope. She still grabs Regina’s hand and squeezes it though, not because herself but because the brunette woman who seems too tired to even process the words that are out of her mouth needs it. Needs her.

“I knew that I didn’t want to” Regina says, her tongue poking between her lips, moisturizing them. “I knew that but I tried either way. I guess because of him, because of the story we would have been able to have if…”

Then the silence is there again, filling every crevice of Emma’s body, weighing her down.

“But I can’t, I won’t”

And it isn’t until later, much much later, when there are a few lost calls from Robin on Regina’s phone and the brunette is almost drowsy, the film over and another one equally cheesy on the old tv’s screen, that Emma lets herself squeeze Regina’s hand again, this time for herself.

**58.-“Happy birthday.”**

Regina laughs a little when she says those words, mostly because a part of her still can remember what Emma had confided her a few years ago about whises and blue stars and closed eyes. And the curse and prophecy they both had been subjected to turns the whole birthday thing in an old threat that hardly bites anymore. Is also curious the way Emma smiles and looks at her, curious and yet so breathtaking that Regina needs a second after that, her fingers curling and the memories of waking up and finding herself on Emma’s coach with a thick blanket over her and a sleepy Emma at her side comes back again, the memory making her swallow and blink, fire and a tentative smile reaching her eyes.

She doesn’t say anything else though because both Snow and Charming are also there and Henry is looking at her in that same exasperated way he always seems to look at her whenever Emma and her are interacting and she doesn’t know, doesn’t want, to think in anything else to say. Emma smiles and nods and it’s almost a tremble on her hands, as if she had thought on hugging her in the middle of the dinner, patrons still eyeing the not-so-little-anymore-family as they eat and drink, a softly giggling Ruby also looking at them.

And everything is equally complicated and equally easy and Regina would want to think that she actually is able to say something else apart from that but she can’t and so she smiles curtly and nods before stepping away, sitting on her designated sit and try not to look to nervous when Emma finally sits at her side.

She wonders of course, the second that the tension, turned into this, into nervousness, into looks that can both hold a meaning and be mere looks. She wonders and she smiles and talks, looking warmly at Emma when the woman opens her gift and looks at her, a simple yet tasteful cardigan on her hands, the little note, almost hidden on the paper, saying simply four little words “For those cold nights”

And she also wonders if she has really changed that much or everything had started the night a stubborn blonde knocked on her door and started what she had tried so hard to keep and maintain.

**59.-Wow.”**

Regina doesn’t turns when she hears Emma voice even if she still smiles a little, blush dusting her cheeks for a second. It the awed sound, the almost breathless tone, the gentle way Emma says that as she closes the door behind her, the brash lights of the hospital’s corridor dimming a little.

Zelena is peacefully sleeping in front of her though and she relishes on that image for one more second, her niece sleeping next to her mother, her emerald green eyes (slightly brighter than Zelena’s and a lot more than Emma’s) now closed. It’s indeed quite a sight, a sight that still causes her pain even if not as much as she remembers whenever she was in the same room as her sister those few first months.

Rage is still there, fear and anger appearing from time to time with despair and the strange feeling of regret ringing her ears every time she tries to forget. Thing is that it doesn’t hurts so much anymore, not because of the newborn, not because her sister but maybe because her rage is too tired to hold itself anymore.

Maybe she is going soft.

A thought that makes her chuckle as Emma sits at her right, her left hand offering her a large cup of coffee and a bag from where a delicious smell comes floating until it reaches Regina’s nose.

“They look…”

Regina doesn’t know what word is Emma searching for but she indeed has hers and so she whispers it, a pensive look on her eyes.

“Free”

And indeed it could be said than they are because it has long ago passed the time in where Zelena would need to be on that wing of the hospital but Regina has found herself unable to put her sister back on the cell se had previously occupied.

Robin has yet to say anything but she isn’t exactly expecting a call after that last dinner and the way she had simply refused to be with him one more second and so she sighs and smiles a little when Emma nods at her side.

It’s not a habit, not yet at least. But it has become increasingly common for Regina to come at that hour and look at her sister and niece sleep or play. Zelena is less acid when the baby is with her and in the times Regina has found her awaken they had barely discussed. It’s a step, a step Regina still eyes wearily but one she knows she will need to take at one point or another.

And as Emma smiles one last time at her and starts standing up Regina also thinks about the amount of days in which Emma, hating hospitals as much as she does, has come to be with her, to bring her coffee, to just simple be there even with Robin lurking, even with confusion and magic and fear and terror hovering over her.

It’s strange and yet just so simple that it’s something that Emma only does for her.

And she hasn’t comment it on it.

“Emma?” She calls, turning and looking at Emma who is staring back at her from the open door.

And it’s definitely not the place nor the moment but everything is suddenly burning and Regina’s memory is bringing back the night, the silent, open question she had managed to keep to herself until now, the dreams that had come from that night, the times and words and touches she had needed to think twice, the promises she had needed to make before and since and it’s too much all of sudden and so when her lips move and her legs approach her to Emma she is unaware that she has indeed closed her sister’s door behind her and her own body is too close and buzzing with magic in a way she can’t remember having felt before, not since she was a teenager and her whole life still ahead from her.

“Can you kiss me?”

**60.-“You don’t have to say anything.”**

It’s almost the immediate sentence that comes to Regina’s lips, the empty hospital corridor the only witness to her fooliness.

And it’s maybe because of the way Emma is looking at her or the tightness on her throat but she feels too young, too exposed, too raw and the only thing that comes to her mind is turn and pretend that nothing has happened, that nothing will ever happen because yes, everything is only a bunch of words and memories, one that don’t necessarily need to mean anything.

And so she smiles apologetically and steels herself, her face changing, her features pure steel as she keeps feeling naked, exposed, bare to a woman that keeps looking at her.

“Regina”

Is the only thing that Emma says but it’s enough, enough for Regina who swallows and shakes her head, unable to say anything, to angry at herself.

“You don’t have to tell me anything” She repeats and the “Miss Swan” echoes on both of their minds, the two of them remembering those moments. And in a way it seems to still be the same though, they are too close and Regina’s head is burning alongside with her digits, her body too tense, ready to break in two.

And so when Emma shakes her head, a word almost escaping her mouth but remaining prisoner at the last second Regina knows that she has lost the only gamble she had taken against herself.

Thing is how much she has actually lost.


	13. Burning

 

**61.-“It’s two sugars, right?”**

It’s a sentence said with fake nonchalance, with a shrug that tries to convey a meaning that it’s not there while she manages to blink, smile and talk as if nothing is wrong as if the tightness on her chest doesn’t exists, as if fear is no lurching at the back of her neck. Is almost comical how Emma nods, a simple answer to a question Regina already knew the answer for before asking, how Snow and David keep smiling at each other, happy to see their daughter again, slightly confused maybe of why the two women in front of them look at each other as if not trying to get caught while doing so.

Not that Regina cares, or thinks about it of course, not that she has too many messages from Robin, too many explanations being asked by Tinker, too many moments being wasted away as she thinks once and again on that moment in the hospital, words and whispers as tight as her voice feels like when she looks at Emma, their eyes locking but not as usual, a lack of something on both of them, Emma swallowing as she tries not to look at her hands, a shade of magic obscuring Regina’s own eyes.

They hadn’t talked about it, not when there have been more pressing matters, not when Regina had just walked away from her own situation, acting as if nothing happened, weary and fearful of what Emma would have answered to her request, nervous from what will happen, of what has already changed.

She feels too young in all of this, as young as Henry maybe, and that is precisely what makes her fidget with her digits, habit and lost ring not changing anything.

And so they look at each other, Regina’s tongue heavy, her own voice echoing on her ears once again, Emma’s lips twisted into what could be a smile as she eyes her parents, eyes whispering “noes” and “yeses” at the same time making Regina tremble. Because she can’t take anymore doubts, any more regret.

And they are so close that she remembers the town line once again, too vividly, to clearly, almost as if she is there now, looking at Emma who was already starting to fade away, who was already reaching her own turning point. And for a second, for a moment, she can almost remember something else on Emma’s eyes, a promise maybe, a whispered truth. But the memory ends just as the coffee cools and she blinks. It’s not real, she says firmly, clenching her hands around the mug, smiling and answering to Snow’s questions, nervousness caressing the back of her neck like a sweet curse. It’s fiction.

She wonders though, wonders what would have Emma answered, what would have she answered if she had let herself talk.

She knows her answer, the risk, she knows her decision. Problem is, she thinks as she sighs inwardly, she doesn’t know Emma’s.

She asked for silence, for ignorance.

And that’s what she got.

 

**62.-“I did the dishes”**

It’s said shyly, one hand scratching blonde hair as the other one moves awkwardly towards Regina’s kitchen, green eyes not quite looking at Regina who had been looking at Henry until now, completely unaware that she had spent so much time trying to understand why the boy is pushing again, seeming unfazed of his mother’s explanations of why Emma is suddenly missing for their lives.

“I miss her” He had said, calmly, not like the ten year old boy he once was but the teenager he is. “Why don’t we invite her to have lunch with us?”

And so they are now, Regina staring at her son while trying not to look at Emma, her fingers burning, her thumbs itching as if remembering the times she had pressed the numbers to call Emma and the way she had cut the call before the blonde was able to pick her. It’s childish she thinks for the millionth time, childish and yet real, real because she remembers all too well the nights without knowing, the times in where she only was able to think about Emma, not realizing why, not even thinking why.

And now she feels her heart bursting with fear every time she senses Emma nearby. As if expecting an answer, the answer she asked not to be answered. And it’s complicated not because of what she could lost but also of what that mean for her, for Emma, for her own past.

So she keeps looking at her son until Emma nods and murmurs something, eyes almost grey, no green. Magic hasn’t resurfaced but is something there, a warning maybe that makes Regina sigh and think again on the woman she was herself once, long before Emma, long before titles, long before pain or sorrow when she had once thought that she was able to wish upon a star.

She lets Emma go.

**63.- “It can wait until tomorrow.”**

It’s said swiftly, as if Regina doesn’t know how to finish the sentence without actually rushing and Emma sighs eyeing Storybrooke from the window of her apartment, eyeing the glass she has in front of her and touching it, closing her eyes at the coldness of it. It has been a week and a half since she last practiced with the brunette and she is fearful, fearful of the why hidden behind Regina’s multiple “noes”, behind old practiced excuses, behind half-lies that aren’t really lies because in essence they have the truth, waiting for Emma, expecting her.

She thinks if that’s the real trick though, if she needs to actually destroy the fragile lies or just pretend to believe them.

They had done too much maybe, to backtrack now, she hadn’t talked when she should have, taken aback of Regina’s proposition, thinking again on Robin, her mind filled with Zelena, with happiness, with redemption, a redemption she had almost been able to taste it on the back of her tongue.

She could have answered, she knows that, she could have kissed Regina senseless, she could have told her that the moment she was left alone she realized the missing piece of the puzzle, the answer for what Hook had gone with only a question as an explanation “Why did you do it?”

Why?

And as she murmurs a tired “ok” and hangs up the phone her hand goes back to her neck, her penchant waiting there, twinkling slightly against the light, and reflecting itself on the window. She had questioned herself about the why the second dark power started to eat her up, the second everything seemed to be closing around her, crumbling as soon as she tried to understand it.

Maybe that’s the reason why she finally turns and opens the door of the place, picking up her keys and closing the door behind her with one quick movement. Maybe that’s the reason why she sighs and puffs and mutters under her breath because she won’t do that with the aid of magic, because she won’t be that kind of person anymore, because she is almost there, they are almost there, an inch away, a word away.

And she doesn’t want to be the one who walked away, not this time.

**64.-“You didn’t have to ask.”**

It’s breathless and almost incoherent by the time Regina opens the door but Emma keeps talking because they are in front of a door once again, this time open and both of them looking at each other, no more authors or fates to fix or find, just them. And it’s actually strange because they had passed so much time pretending even when they weren’t aware that she almost feels weak as she coughs, repeating herself once again, feeling her insides churn, knowing that she is about to jump.

“I would have let you kiss me”

And it’s not the words she had thought about while running or the admission she would have to say first but it’s out and as soon as she it is her chest explodes itself, fear and nervousness and so much want that she almost forgets to smile when Regina shakes her head once and opens her mouth, as if something inside of her has finally realized what Emma had been dying to tell her since she looked at her back in that same hospital, blinking and just feeling herself bathed in light, one that is not perfect nor broken nor fixed, just theirs.

And so when Regina finally kiss her is not fireworks nor magic nor pure blasts of energy but kindness and warmth and tears and cries and banter and condensed hate that turned into respect which formed their mutual friendship, the one that finally led them to this point, point in where the only thing she is able to feel is the brunette’s warm fingers and hot tongue, flushed body and magic inside of her, so much magic that she feels dizzy, drunk.

And so she kisses Regina, once and again, tight words on her throat, words that won’t come out, not yet.

**65.-“Stay Over”**

The words are breathless and yet so full of something that Regina trembles when she hears herself saying them, promises inside promises, eyes and smoldering touches turning her speechless, incandescent. And she wonders and she knows she is alone, they are, and she has that option, that option that seemed so far ago a few hours before, the option of drowning and coming back to the surface without a scratch. And she wonders and thinks and fears and smiles and kisses until there is nothing left but ashes and a flame that she doesn’t know how to quench.

“Please” And she is not begging, neither is Emma, but in that moment her knees are trembling and not due to pleasure but magic, a magic that grows and grows, devouring her, each touch making her want to take more just because she is able to, just because she is finally allowed to.

“Stay over”

And so Emma stays.


	14. Discovering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/n Short chapter this time, sorry ^^’’ But we are slowly moving towards the end… even though Emma and Regina are just going to be their usual blind selves.

 

**66.-“You’re warm.”**

The words are said softly, one hand caressing her own as carefully as the voice seems to not want to startle her and for a second Regina sighs and closes her eyes, wanting to curl and fall asleep once again, the presence of the sleepy blonde only making her want to crave the blissfulness of sleep even if it’s only for one more second.

But then she opens her eyes once again and Emma is looking at her, a gentle smile on her lips, fear on her eyes and the stubborn shadow the blonde always seems to have whenever Emma is near. It’s everything all of sudden, sharp edges and careful softness and the sight makes her want to smile and when Emma moves a tad closer, her naked body pressing against her, the proof of what they have done a few hours before, she only sighs and clutches Emma’s back, her digits digging on the blonde’s flesh, a quiet sob seizing her body.

Emma doesn’t say anything, she just lets her hug her tightly, her lips touching her shoulders, leaving behind phantom caresses that seem to scorch her skin every time Emma seems about to move away from her, severing their contact.

And Regina knows that it must be difficult for Emma, that she is not the only one with ghosts instead of pupils, with nightmares instead of memories, but as Emma keeps hugging her tightly guilt disappears, a tentative warmth touching her when she finally manages to look back at Emma, lips, skin, soft, warm, gentle.

It’s comfortable, she thinks, and yet it’s something else, something that’s not biased with fate and destiny and for the first time Regina lets herself breath. It smells like cinnamon and freesia and maybe something else or just something that’s not exactly that but the brunette woman just kisses Emma again and again, bruised lips against pale ones and for that moment everything is ok, even, safe.

And Regina finds herself basking on it.

**67.-“No reason.”**

But there is a reason and Regina knows that Emma is aware of it when she tilts her head to one side and kisses her fully on the lips, her eyes not entirely closed, looking around even on the kiss, nervousness and fear on her clipped smile. The feeling of being ripped apart makes her hide a wince when Emma pulls back, clothes rumpled and morning after look blatantly obvious from her mussed-up hair to the gentle love bites that Regina can almost trace on the blonde’s pale collarbone.

The reason, Regina thinks, sighing and biting her bottom lip, remembering those times in where she looked upon a star wondering when her wish would come, remembering the many times that, as an adult, she had learnt to fear wishes. And Emma kissing her, softly and yet not entirely, seems more like a wish, a wish she had made so long ago back in a place where her mind didn’t want to look, afraid of the despair she was sure was waiting there.

“Thank you” She says at the end and Emma nods and hums, turning and marching towards her apartment, first light of morning blinding Regina for a second as the blonde walks away, one hand over her chest, an old wish on her lips.

Because there is a reason for that kiss, there is something that Regina would never say but Emma, Emma who has spent too much time also wondering, waiting, swallowing back tears and hatred, is able to understand.

And so Regina wonders, wonders if something had already changed or it’s another piece of the ever-ending game she always seem to be in.

Her bed is cold when she goes back to it and for a second she is grateful of Henry’s heavy sleep, of her own decision to make the blonde’s need to disappear. Even if that hurts too much, even if she wished differently.

She is not made for wishing after all.

**68\. - “I bought you a ticket.”**

Regina’s wide eyes is the last hint Emma needs to see in order to know that the brunette hadn’t been expecting something like that and as she stares back at her, a slightly crumpled ticket on her right hand, she almost sighs, remembering the days in where she had been partially numb to the world. Not that she would want to go back to those days in where nightmares and fear were her only world but it had been easy to just react to the things she knew she was supposed to react. Her emotions were surfacing and so did her fears, fear that were nothing like the ones the magic could ever create.

“I knew you wanted to see this movie” She finally says, a shrug and a bit on her bottom lip, shoulders tensing, the marks she had there also making her remember the morning after, the night before, the heated kisses and Regina’s sad eyes as she had walked back to her apartment, thrill on her chest.

A week after that though, there are things, memories of “noes” of mocking admissions, that are haunting her, pain and almost faded pretenses but not quite still waiting, waiting for her, for her magic, for her tied tongue and blabbery mouth. She wonders if she has done the right thing though and when Regina just stares back at her she looks at her with fear and longing and the pressure on her chest only gross, threatening to break her in two, to choke her.

“Regina?” She asks, tentatively, but Regina doesn’t answer, fear and longing and something that Emma doesn’t know how to dwell on haunting her eyes. Emma sees the brunette smiling before turning, her back becoming nothing else but a blurred figure in the middle of the street when she finally realizes that she is crying.

**69.-“Take mine.”**

Regina smiles softly at two red-rimmed eyes before looking away nervously checking the rest of the patrons inside the dinner, Ruby looking at them with a brow arched and something that almost looks like a scold from Regina is seated at.

Not that she wants to think twice about the werewolf, or why she always seems to be looking at them, or the fact that she feels cold and lost and not so sure of anything anymore. The steaming cup of chocolate that’s now in front of Emma and is her peace offering looks back at her, between Emma’s pale hands –she notices how the fingernails appear to be poorly treated- and her own.

It’s not exactly an apology and Regina knows that, nor an invitation for anything else and she knows that also. She just want to know where she stand though and so she waits, Emma’s green eyes craving her own name on her own, a tired nod following that look, almost the same minute movement that had started everything else, that had made Regina stop and wonder… for something else than just a story she would never be the main character off.

It’s ironic, she knows, so she stays and waits. Until nothing else is left to say without words and her apology seems to be nothing more like cooling chocolate with a straw, the red color of it making her almost want to smile.

“I would love seeing that movie with you” She says tentatively but it’s not a promise, not a forgiveness plea, not words that actually mean anything else and as she stare at Emma the woman knows that Emma knows that.

Pain, she thinks as she nods curtly, nervously. It’s just pain.

Although it isn’t just that, not anymore.

**70.-“I’ll meet you halfway.”**

The song is slow and not exactly cheerful but when Emma twirls and makes Henry roar with laughter Regina can only stare and smile, entranced, desiring, wishing, hoping.

And think that maybe she will never have the perfect date like she would have wished for when she still believed in wishes and happy endings that wouldn’t need prices to exist. Maybe she would always need to wait for something else, maybe that night had been a mistake.

But as Emma keeps signing, not good enough, not attuned enough but real and warm and just Emma, Regina smiles.

She wants that, she thinks, meeting the blonde halfway, reaching it.

And then…. Who knows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Emma is singing is “I will meet you halfway” by the The Partridge family and next chapter will be more emma-centric ;)


	15. Talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Sorry for having this on hiatus! A lot of things had happened in my life… and the exams aren’t exactly helping –sigh- Anyway! I hope you like this new chapter and… yup, only five more chapters and we will be done! ;)

**71.-"I'll help you study."**

Emma smiles slightly as she watches Regina whispering that to Henry, the teenager boy looking confusedly to what appears to be Chemistry. The rest of the voices inside Granny's don't seem to be as acutely linked to hers like the former brunette is and the blonde closes her eyes, trying but failing to think about something else that is not Regina.

It has been almost a month, a month of silence, a month in where she had been a silent witness of how Regina had started to not only look drained every time she goes to look at Zelena but also at peace with it. She herself has wondered if that's what other people see in her now, peace. It's not yet perfect though and sometimes, when Regina thinks she is not looking at her, she sheds a tear or sighs deeply as Emma pretends to keep her exercises.

She is turning better with her new magic, not a source of fear or hate anymore she actually enjoys the feeling of it running up her veins. The nightmares still appears from time to time though but what she is doesn't repulse her anymore. And she knows that's good. That she is slowly healing.

The night they spent alone though, Regina and herself, is another story, one she still doesn't exactly understands, doesn't exactly knows if there's actually something to ask, to doubt. She knows she wants to, she knows what she desires even though there are still too many things that seem to be out of reach for her.

For her mind.

But there is still the acute feeling of longing inside her chest whenever she looks at Regina, whenever she is with her like now, listening to her explaining their son something about a formula she would have never been able to understand. Is almost too domestic, too easy, but at the same time something she can so easily see herself into that's almost scary.

Perhaps that's the reason they had never talked about it. She muses, nursing the hot chocolate she has on between her hands, avoiding Ruby's gaze when she opens her eyes once again, her lips tasting like cinnamon when she licks them clean. Perhaps she needs first to understand herself.

Or perhaps, she thinks, nervousness and hurt echoing on the back of her head as she does to, she has already lost her opportunity.

However, even though there are still too many things that had been left unsaid Regina's own fiery gaze isn't precisely a mirage. And the smallest and doubtful smile the two of them share as Henry tries to explain the formula to his brunette mother neither it is.

**72.-"Call me if you need anything."**

The brunette is in the doorjamb of Emma's apartment with a foot already outside the building, soft looking eyes that flicker between Emma and the floor, hands at her sides.

She looks stunning and Emma swallows before nodding slightly, knowing deep down that she won't be calling Regina tonight, not even if she actually is already missing her.

The brunette is going to visit her sister, the red-head still being heavily guarded but overall much more calmer than what Emma has even seen her. Time, apparently, truly helps. And Archie's therapy.

A part of her wonders though if the sentence has really being said to hers or to Henry, who is already reading on the spare room. Pretending probably not be listening to his mothers conversation.

Emma almost smirks at that; even though she and Henry had spent sometime appart the boy had only needed to look at her once to know that she is actually worried abouth something. She is almost as perceptive as his other mother. Which both scares her and thrill her. The teen know that something is up but Regina hasn't say anything about him asking questions.

When Emma bits her bottom lip and nods Regina finally seems to doubt, as if she is about to ask her something that don't fall from her lips at the end.

"Take care" Emma whispers and for a moment there is something there, like the ghost of an answer that Emma should have asked the day she had woken up with Regina at her side.

But Regina hums, a promise, closing the door behind her.

**73.-"I'll still be here when you're ready."**

She puts away her phone before the message is sent and when Emma looks at the screen she shakes her head and closes her eyes. Is already late, Henry is now asleep and the shadows in the apartment even if not large, seem to be looking at her, unblinkingly.

She knows she is being stupid, she knows she is thinking too much into it, but when she finally takes up enough courage to pick up her phone again and make that call she almost bits too strongly on her lip. Muttering one soft sentence on the speaker, feeling exposed and yet finally free.

Is not that she cares too much, she tries to say to herself, is not like it would matter if she truly has lost her opportunity. Is not that she fears rejection, loss, is not that she suddendly feels like the woman who had once said to Snow that she wouldn't be able to reach the same power the once mayor had being just her. Is not that. And yet, when Regina picks up the phone, soft yet worried voice echoing on the speaker she doubts for a second before asking, before finally deciding to trust her instincts.

"Would you come over after you finish?"

**74.-"You're important too."**

Regina whisper is not what makes Emma tear up but her gentle hand on her cheek. She has started to feel fragile after her call, memories of Hook, of what had happened with him, coming back to her after months, after deeply hidden nerves. It's not that she misses the pirate, she never exactly did, but after too much time trying to say to herself that nothing of what happened hadn't been her fault being touched, being acknowledged, is too much. Too important.

The brunette fells silent for a second before she smiles, still far too beautiful, still looking at her like a warm glowing fire that caresses her body every time she tries to move closer, a promise, a memory of what once happened.

"You are important" Regina mutters again "I just didn't want to discover that what we both had done was just that, was everything you wanted. I didn't want to face that possibility"

"When we have grown to be like this?"

The question is out even before Emma has time to process it, a quiet mumble that does not reach anything beyond the living room's walls and is only when a silence follows when she looks to Regina, the former queen smiling sadly.

"We started to fear the other could leave"

And Emma realizes that's precisely the truth.

**75.-"Sweet dreams."**

The words are out in a rush, a quiet mumble that Regina responds with something that could be considered a kiss on her cheek, too close to her lips to be solely that. They had talked about Zelena, about Regina's own fears, about Henry, about Storybrooke, about them, and even though the clock is pushing an already too late hour Regina insists on going back to her house.

"You will want to spend your time with Henry without me" She has says and even if it's a joke Emma hears the old fear resurfacing for a second, fear she tries to quell by shaking her head. Still, the brunette leaves, probably trying to keep her distance and her head cool. An intelligent move Emma appreciates later on, when everything is silent and shadows don't seem to look at her anymore.

A chime on her phone is what makes her smile, a kiss and a wish for a well-rested night the last things she sees.

Is not perfect, she knows that, but they are going somewhere, getting somewhere, and for the first time she is no terrified by it.


	16. Softness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N Xd Four chapters to go! Let me tell you what you think! ;)

 

**76.-“Cross my heart and hope to die.”**

Emma says it with such conviction that Regina almost wants to laugh and looks at her from the other side of the room, where she is stuck with Belle and a talk she very much enjoys but it is not still enough.

They are at the Charming’s household, holding what Snow has tried to make all of them think is a birthday celebration but still feels a lot like a celebration about no one dying, about not villain fought and about not city need to be saved ever since the first curse was lifted. And Regina knows that she should feel uncomfortable but she doesn’t anymore and is strange in the same amount that it’s not.

And Emma is nodding, smiling softly, making laughs with David who is also smiling, happy to hear such words from his daughter, happy to know that Emma is finally making jokes and talking and not letting the shadows overtake her mood. And whereas is a stupid sentence, one that seems cheesy and out of one of those books Regina had always despised the former queen knows that she doesn’t need to know what the conversation is about, that Emma’s own answer is enough.

And is actually kind of silly how much their relationship hadn’t changed at all since a month ago, when she had walked back home wanting nothing more but turn back. Is actually stupid really how much they still enjoy the little things that no one seems to have realized how much they mean now.

Which Regina thinks that perhaps is a sign of how much they meant before even if they didn’t realize it.

And is simple in their own complicated way and so, after realizing she had perhaps been looking at Emma for far too much she looks back at Belle who seems to keep talking about a new batch of books she had received, content and happy and another kind of simple Regina has also learned to perceive.

She still sees Emma’s quick glance directed at her though, a sober, soft one that makes herself stand taller, look fiercer, talk louder.

And she enjoys that immensely.

**77.-"Did you get my letter?"**

The question makes Emma smile and nod as the woman in front of her sighs and waits. She had indeed read that letter in the middle of Granny’s, knowing that she is pushing her luck, that she shouldn’t be doing that, not after the whole talk about secrecy and waiting, and time. Still, knowing that the woman who terrorized reigns and realms has taken her time to write her a letter makes her wants to laugh like the teenager she never got the chance to be.

And yes, the letter is now hidden under the papers she is supposed to be doing, at least before Regina entered in the station and asked the question. Blood red lips parting, brown eyes nervous yet guarded, like they normally are whenever they are close, too close, in a place in where they could be seen.

And Emma doesn’t understand the need of silence, the need of time. She understands the need of secrecy though, the need of knowing before showing, the need of waiting. Even though it pains her, even though she want to actually kiss the woman in front of her.

They have done a lot, though, walked a lot, and so Emma instead of telling Regina how she had pushed the boundaries, how she had read the letter with a smile on her face, trying not to get it stained with coffee and cinnamon, trying not to get busted by Ruby. Trying, perhaps, of not wanting to stand and say thing that are still far too new to be true.

So she nods and shows the brunette the letter in which a tale about the two of them is depicted in the cursive, neat, handwriting of the queen. A story, perhaps, not for them but for the past them, the ones that were afraid.

And Regina smiles, still very much shy, still very much guarded, years of soulmates and true loves seeping between her walls from time to time, making her cringe. But is how she reacts to Emma’s soft “Yes, thank you” what makes it worthy, what makes her incredibly beautiful.

Even though Emma won’t say it, not yet.

**78.-"I was in the neighborhood"**

Is a lie, a lie that Emma carries with aplomb as she says it to Snow. The former enemy of the queen looking at the two of them without a trace of doubt. And Regina actually shakes her head a millimeter, knowing full well that Emma wouldn’t lie if it not were because of her, wouldn’t tell that if it weren’t because she doesn’t know what she wants yet.

But the moment passes and Snow smiles and nods and perhaps is a lie good enough to make Regina don’t think on the way her hand tingles from where Emma had been holding it until a few seconds before, when they had been in front of Regina’s house. The excuse of their lessons the why, the way they seem to keep wanting to see each other the reason.

And is an actual good lie because Snow turns around and leaves, leaving them alone like they were before the other woman approached them, a warm smile on her eyes and a question on her lips. And perhaps is far too early for a lesson, for an excuse, to pass but it seems it does and Regina feels relieved, relieved because there are still far too many things for her to actually try to understand how much she cares for Emma, how much she wants to kiss her.

And they hadn’t exactly done that a lot, not yet, not really. But Regina finds herself wanting to do exactly that once Snow is out of sight and Emma looks pensive and soft and human and not.

And she does it, softly, a peck that will make her close her eyes and wish for the lack of a burst of lighting because that would be too much and she wants simple things, non-magical things. And when she opens her eyes she can’t but smile at Emma, brown and green, no magic, just her staring back.

Is refreshing, perhaps too much. But she wants to hold on that sensation for a little bit longer not that there is no villain, no big terror, no dark summoning she should be worried about.

And so she nods at Emma and watches as the blonde waves and turns back, approaching the yellow bug, decided to carry on with her own day.

And it makes her proud.

**79.-“I’ll see you later.”**

Emma bits the insides of her cheeks as she hears that from the other side of the phone, a promise of a date she knows full well that it won’t be a date.

Still, it makes her sigh and leave the phone after a quiet, mumbled “Ok” that makes David look up from the papers he had been writing. Silence broke on the station.

“You ok?” He asks and Emma finds herself wanting to tell him even though she knows she never will.

And still, there are too many silences and secrets, secrets that after her still ongoing recovery her parents and she had started to understand but that’s a kind of secret she knows she can’t spill and so she shrugs and looks back to her papers, feeling magic playing in the tips of her fingers but never actually managing to escape.

And that makes her feel proud as much as the prospect of seeing Regina makes her nervous, nervous and just enough uncomfortable to know that it’s good, that it matters even though they still don’t want to tell it, even though silence is still what the cloak their words with.

And is hard but Emma knows is for the best, she knows that is still too early.

And for that she waits.

**80.-“We can share.”**

Regina almost needs to ask Emma to say that again because there is that glint of mischievousness, of light banter echoing on the other woman’s voice that she has really missed. And since the sentence is said over a scoop of ice cream with a challenge written on the blonde’s face she takes it because it feels like something she can actually take.

So she bends forward, glad to be at home, surrounded by anything but silence, with Henry fast asleep on his room, door closed, and that scoop of ice-cream tantalizingly close. And is childlike the way she makes herself lick the spoon the blonde is offering her, the way she looks at Emma. And still it isn’t and she enjoys the way the blonde looks at her way after she has moved back to her sit. Flirty, or maybe not, or maybe as if she is holding her breath, waiting, expecting, nervous. Just like Regina herself feels every time they move closer, every time they try something different, every time they caress each other’s hands, skin against skin, for something as short as a second.

Because even though outside those walls they still don’t know what kind of path they are walking through there is still that kind of details that tells Regina where they are. Even if is just a spoon full of ice-cream she doesn’t particularly likes but still enjoys. Even that.


	17. Stammering

 

 

**81.-“It doesn’t bother me.”**

Regina hears the words and she turns to look at the open curtains of her study focusing on the city that lays at the other of the glass. She, as much as she wants to not  not have been eavesdropping as she had been doing ever since Lily’s ID appeared on the blonde’s phone and the sheriff had picked it up with just a second of hesitance flashing behind her pupils, finds herself failing, ears sharp, attention dragged towards the blonde’s voice which still echoes on the room.

They had been eating together, shy and tranquil smiles whenever one of them looked at the other, before the call happened and as Regina gazes at the green eyes of the blonde she feels the pull of guilt slowly turning inside of her.

She hasn’t been counting the days –liar, she has- ever since the blonde and she gave the first tentative step towards something they still can’t explain.  During that time they have mostly talked about everything, dark one’s days a murmured information passed just whenever they could pretend the other wasn’t really listening. They, however, haven’t talked about Lily, about Maleficent. Not a single time.

Which Regina hadn’t exactly minded; Maleficent is something that even now is a subject she doesn’t know how to explain, where to start. And for what she saw of Lily back when the woman had been brought by both Emma and herself there is something a story between the blonde and her, one the younger woman doesn’t want to talk about.

But now, sensing the quiet tension coming off Emma like magical waves something inside Regina stirs. A weight settling just below her heart, a warning perhaps.

And it had been months since Lily talked with Emma, months since the blonde has talked about her friend, the only one who had caught her back back in a day. And Regina knows she can’t exactly complain.

So when Emma hangs up and tells her that Lily is planning to go back to Storybrooke and that she has asked her to help her cross the border she nods and takes a bite from her salad, feeling her appetite gone.

If Emma notices it she doesn’t comment on it though, silence filling the rest of their lunch. And Regina keeps wondering what exactly the terms of what they both are doing are, if there are terms at all that is.

**82.- “Good luck.”**

The words feel strange on Regina’s tongue, perhaps because they don’t feel real, perhaps because she can remember the hundreds of times she had already said them and it’s almost mechanic at this point. It doesn’t matter though since Emma nods and takes them graciously as she finish the last things for the short trip she will be doing to the nearest airport in order to pick up Lily.

And Regina is jealous, jealous and angry with herself for feeling so, knowing full well the importance that Lily had on Emma when she had been a child, knowing how much it had actually destroyed Emma to realize that every important person on her childhood had been somewhat linked to a destiny they still actively seek to break.

And is stupid, she thinks as she eyes the blonde, eyes dark and unreadable, one hand around Henry’s shoulders who is also looking at his younger mother, both Charmings also there, waiting for Emma to finish with her bags.

If some of them notice the way Regina’s voice seem to deepen as Emma and her share a look they don’t say anything but Regina can feel Snow’s eyes on them, burning.

She wonders if telling them the truth, a truth she still doesn’t quite grasp, about her feelings for the blonde is worth the jealousy.

She decides against it. But it pains her, and makes her wonder.

**83.-“Do you want to come too?”**

Emma snorts to herself in the silence of the car, Storybrooke’s border long ago crossed, nothing but dark-looking clouds starting back at her from outside of her bug. When she had asked the question to Regina, seconds before entering in the car, everything had seemed simple, a question, just one.

Regina’s eyes had nearly bulged out as both Snow and David had frowned though, Henry looking at the two of them with a far more intelligent look Emma would have want him to. And then she had realized.

She knows that she has played with danger asking that one now, she knows that is stupid to feel strange alone once again. But she does. And she also feel angered with herself, with Regina, for the silent game they both are playing.

“I’m going to miss you” She had thought when the border had closed behind her, magic trapped at the other side, cut from her. And though she could try to feign that the thought had indeed been directed to the magic she had walked far too much down that path to know that no, she was referring to a certain brunette who still doesn’t know how to tell the little city she had once created about…

Them.

If there exists one at least. Emma still doesn’t know what are they and the anger of the doubts is slowly becoming more stronger, like a fireball slowly burning her insides.

That doesn’t matter though, not for now, she decides, gripping the steering wheel. She is going to pick up Lily and then she will be in Storybrooke once again and she and Regina will talk.

Yes, talk.

And everything will actually be for the best if that doesn’t make her feel even more uneasy, want and will mixing together as the first raindrops begin to fall.

**84.- “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”**

Regina voice is still echoing on the speaker of the phone as she exits her room, already up and clothed and scribbling down a quick note for Henry not wanting to worry him by waking him up.

Is just a trip, she murmurs to herself while she picks the keys of the Mercedes. Just a trip, one she is perfectly able to do even though it has actually been a while since she had crossed the border. A quite long while.

But Emma needs her. And Lily.

She almost want to close her eyes and mutter the profanities she had once been taught as a child she wasn’t supposed to say. The last words Emma had asked her before entering in that car coming back at her, making her almost chuckle.

“I want to go” She had thought, but she had shook her head instead, wanting to close her eyes or avert them from Emma’s obvious disappointed look. One Snow had promptly caught.

Still, she is now feeling strangely smug about the fact that is going to be thanks to that decision  that she now will able to pick up both Emma and Lily as the blonde’s bug has decided to die in the middle of basically nowhere. Is funny in the same sense karma and retribution are and as she starts the engine and clears her head with a shake she lets out a dry laugh.

The pained and clipped way Emma had spoken through the phone though is something that floats behind her long before her car has disappeared.

**85.-“The key is under the mat.”**

The words are a murmur Regina smirks at, the tired looking blonde blinking as she tries not to fall asleep next to her, Lily already off of the car, her silhouette entering in what Mal had been using as home for the last few weeks the last thing Regina had seen from her rear mirror.

Which she doesn’t mind since between the slowly nodding off blonde and the snippy half-dragon woman Regina isn’t sure how much she will be able to take.

Still, the way Emma talks while trying to remain awake is something that makes her smile and lick her lips, suddenly feeling the necessity to kiss the blonde’s forehead. Or perhaps her lips.

She doesn’t does that though albeit when they finally arrive at Emma’s apartment is Regina the one opening the door of it, helping a slowly awakening Emma to enter inside. Is a detail of the sheriff she has always found amusing; how quick she is able to fall asleep in a car. A detail Emma herself had shared back in one of those nights in Neverland when everything they had need to keep going had been Henry’s name, and perhaps some smiles.

“Thank you for driving us back” Emma says and makes Regina snaps off her thoughts, feeling a blush forming on the back of her neck as she does so.

She nods and mutters something almost unintelligible while wondering when was the time that everything turned back to be clipped words that don’t convey what they really want to say.

Still, she keeps silent and when Emma smiles at her and kisses her cheek she lets her with just the right amount of shudder parting her lips, the only sign she had expected more.

And Emma knows it. She knows it very well.


	18. Perceiving

 

**86.- “I was just thinking about you.”**

The words roll easily out off her lips, far too easily perhaps. But the smile Emma gives her makes the uncomfortable sensation of commodity way better. Particularly the way the skin of the blonde’s eyes wrinkle around them, green turning lighter for a second, too close to blue.

It has been a week since Lily’s departure, the half-dragon woman having left Storybrooke far too quickly for, probably, Maleficent’s preferences. For Regina is a blessing since having two dragons in town- one particularly fiery- wasn’t doing any good to the already tight budget they had for reparations.

All in all though the brunette knows she should be thanking the other woman for the words she is saying now, words that would have been painful to say before.

And it hasn’t been because of anything drastic the mercurial woman could have said but the words she used before departing.

_“You have her trust on your hands and both of you know it”_

Which is still a strange phrase and one Regina is still trying to understand but the feeling behind it, the last look Lily had given her, had been what had made Regina think. About Emma, about herself. About what a relationship is for her ever since Robin, ever since Leopold, ever since Daniel.

And she does have Emma’s trust between her hands. As well as Emma has hers.

That’s perhaps the least jarring realization she may have had but still it makes a difference. Makes the difference of her starting to try being vocal, short words, short phrases, that aren’t quite the same of what she would had said before. Caring looks, not so many knots around the manners she would want to have, around what she thinks she would have thought she would had deserved to have.

Words at the end are powerful, too powerful. Words can break a curse and create it, words can dissolve families, words can help and heal as well as draw blood. Regina being her knows that too well.

So she tries, with a smile, a touch, a word. Not silence, not looming, hovering admissions the both of they know. Is still something new, something that make the two of them uneasy with the implications. But definetely something far more easy than the worry of returning to clipped words and short nods, the two of them wishing for something different.

Which that perhaps is the verb Regina finds herself thinking about the most; wishing. Wishing for something she doesn’t know she even has on her, for something she was told that was unique and just one-life chance. For something that is not the same of what she was actually taught about.

Too many questions, ones that she doesn’t want to think about. So she just sits next to Emma at Granny’s and orders her usual. Like every day, with Emma. Like they have been doing far too many times for it to be considered strange.

Still, the words are there and Emma has heard them. And it feels strange, the way she smiles, the way she seems to touch Regina’s hand when she puts down her own coffee cup even if when Regina looks at her fingers she founds nothing, just the ghost-feeling of a touch.

Is different, still hidden, but different.

But not bad. They can talk about silence and secrecy later.

**87.-“I want you to have this.”**

Regina eyes the key in her palm as if it is a strange object, one that could harm her. Which Emma finds amusing even though she keeps a straight face as Regina inspects it closely, brown eyes flickering darker under the light of the station.

She can see the parallel now on how she may have looked all that time back when Regina had offered her the skeleton key. One she used to see as a strange warm object. One she couldn’t really describe what it was. One that is currently hanging around her neck, unused, yet there.

“I know you don’t exactly need it” She finally offers as the silence stretches. “But just in case… so you don’t need to use your magic or the one under the mat if you ever need to enter”

Things are lighter, she is lighter. There is still hidden doubts about why and what, about who and which but she is letting those rest, decided to enjoy the touches Regina gives her, the soft yet smoldering looks, the admissions they still haven’t shared but are there, just waiting for the right time.

Because they have been friends for quite a long time but not like that, not like now.

So she is waiting.

And Regina picks the key with a glint of something too close to an emotion for it to be a product of the badly lighted room. She looks beautiful and the thought takes Emma’s breath away because that’s a feeling, a complex feeling and she can sees it.

“Thank you” The brunette finally answers and Emma shrugs, looking at the ceiling for a second before looking back, her own eyes seeming glazy, moist.

She doesn’t cry but it’s different. It feels different.

Regina doesn’t use the key the first night, nor the second after that.

She uses it on the third, opening it and leaving the jacket Emma gave her the night before alongside with her perfume that clings and makes Snow first and Pongo second look at the blonde funnily the day after that when she wears it.

Emma doesn’t comment on it though, but she feels the eyes of her mother.

And she knows she doesn’t have time.

**88.- “I noticed.”**

The words are out of her mouth way before Regina realizes their meaning, one that is not less truthful because of it.  Her tone is not clipped, nor forceful, nor full of hate or anger. Is not brisk.

Still, it makes her cringe due to the way Emma seems to deflate under her eyes, the way the blonde seems to start to fidget with her fingers. And Regina knows Emma hasn’t asked to talk about them to Henry, to the blonde’s parents, just because. She knows that that is a speech that was just waiting to happen.

Still, it makes her feel nervous. Makes her feel about to spin, about to see the quiet, strange equilibrium they had both created get destroyed, get changed.

Change is not bad, but is not good either and that’s precisely what makes her feel a constricting sensation around her chest. Around her throat when Emma looks dejectedly at her left and nods. Her words still floating in the air.

_“I have been thinking on perhaps telling this to the kid and my parents”_

Emma is not trying to hurt her. Regina knows that. She herself is not under her mother’s rule anymore, Snow can’t ruin nor change what she is starting with Emma. She knows that.

Still, she cares about it. What makes her feel scared. Vulnerable. It has been too long since she cared for things like that, not ever since Daniel.

Is not care, is not the same care she displays to Henry, is another kind, one that still makes her feel strange. Good.

She doesn’t want to think the word for it though. Not yet, not now. Is too soon.

And she has learned about things that are just too soon. That are just rushed.

But perhaps is time to take a step in another direction. Just like Emma has been doing ever since she appeared once again, ever since she desired and decided to not be just the Queen anymore, to drop the title and with it the name.

“Let’s go then”

**89.- “You can tell me anything.”**

The words are soft, yet well-spoken and Emma shrugs when Regina eyes carefully at her. They are at the exit of Henry’s school. The two of them standing side by side, not touching, but far too close to be considered casual. Which is what they have been doing for far longer than… this, whatever it is, so is not strange.

Yet it seems to be strange considering the odd looks of other parents. And they know Henry is going to be mortified when he sees them; he is a teenager after all. Old enough for not being waited at the end of school.

But there is some kind of softness in doing the talk they both know they need to have like this, a tribute perhaps of the family the still don’t understand where it fits but still make it work.

So she just waits for Regina to answer her “If you don’t want to tell him I mean” She adds.

And she feels fragile, open, and still desires in a way that Regina would told her that no, they aren’t going to tell their son about them but at the same time she knows she needs to.

She just smiles then when Regina shakes her head and takes her arm, squeezing it softly once before turning to look at the now exiting teens.

“We will do this”

And is full of nervousness but there is something a promise that Regina intends to keep. And Emma hears that.

And smiles.

**90.- “You can do it.”**

The words are as murmured as Emma had talked to her before, before a talk Henry had made incredibly easy by just smiling at the two of them and murmuring already on how happy he is for both of them. He is not a kid anymore, so he doesn’t ask about the details. Which is comforting and nerve-wrecking at the same time; the reminder of how the boy is not the child who dreamt on happily ever afters. Even if Regina still despise them.

Either way, the talk has ended and the boy has gently reminded his mothers about the parents of the blonde. Noisy and perhaps not as stupid as Regina would want to think they are.

Which is the main reason of why Emma is now eyeing the door of the apartment the two other adults live while trying to find the words to say.

And why Regina herself is at her side.

And she loathes Snow, loathed perhaps. Not anymore. Still, she knows that is not going to be easy and she wants to be there, to be, just be, near the blonde woman. Just near.

She whispers the same words again, knowing she won’t be the one opening the door, suspecting that Snow is already aware of their presence, thinking on the many reasons this all could end up badly, wishing for them to be true.

She is scared but this is for Emma in ways Regina still tries to comprehend. She is scared but yet smiles, she is scared but doesn’t let it show the second the door is knocked and it opens. She is scared but she still was a queen and far more refined than that.

She is scared, of the questions she will probably receive. Still she knows they both deserve what they are about to take.

Truth.


	19. Managing

**91.- “I hope you like it.”**

Regina scoffs but ends up smiling softly at the darkened features of the blonde, blossoming smile on those pink lips she finds herself shamelessly staring at. Henry had told them that they are worse than Snow and Charming. Which is something Regina refuses to accept.

Rolling her eyes and turning towards the screen of the cinema she suddenly remembers another date just like this one with Henry and pent up emotions not so long ago. She had been dubious about herself, about what she was, about Robin, about fate. And she closes her eyes for a second and sighs, reflecting on where everything has led her in the past months.

The first notes of the film’s opening credits oblige her to focus on the screen once again, Emma’s digits ghosting over her fingers, caressing them in small circles; far more relaxed than how their owner had been a week ago when both she and Regina herself had entered in Charming’s household.

It had ended way better than expected. There weren’t screams or insults. Just silence, silence and a strange sense of freedom when Regina herself finally nodded and confirmed what Emma had just said in a quiet shy voice. Which is something that Regina had hated; Emma was supposed to be unapologetic, but still understood.

Snow had looked at her for the longest of times before smiling slightly and nodding. Regina’s tongue had been heavy with the memories of her old pride, wanting for her to say she wasn’t waiting for any permission, for no blessing. She wasn’t expecting a treaty, a proof that she was being approved.

And yet she felt something lifting from her shoulders and Emma’s tentative nod towards David first and Snow second. And it was difficult, very difficult, stories of old foes running inside her mind, but she waited and hugged Emma when they finally left and closed the door.

And there they are, finally being together, not hiding, not faking. For her is strange, uncomfortable, far too public. And she suspects that it’s too for Emma. But they still have themselves to be with and that’s something that Regina is learning to cherish.

The film is not as bad as she would have though. She will also give that.

**92.- “I saved you a seat.”**

The words are whispered and Emma huffs and seats next to the brunette beauty, eliciting a few looks from the ones around them. For the first time in two months the looks aren’t curious but full of annoyance.

“Quiet” Regina whispers, inching closer to Emma, her body easily molding against the blonde’s side. “Is the first representation of the year, I don’t want to burn some peasant’s asses because of your lack of modals, dear”

Emma can’t school her features at the old glimpse of the woman Regina once was. The mayor in her still as strong as ever. This time though it doesn’t bring her want to teach the brunette a lesson but to smile fondly at the memories of what they once were. Not out of self-pity anymore though. And that alone is proof enough of how far she has walked ever since she re-appeared in Storybrooke once again.

“I would have arrived earlier” She answers back, voice low and deep. “But Grumpy decided that it was the best night for him to drink his weight in beer”

“Then it wasn’t that much” Regina replies smartly and that makes Emma scoff against her best intentions to keep herself silent.

Is strange to have return to their banter, strange but comfortable. Like walking down a path they have already been but with different eyes. There is still pain on Regina’s eyes sometimes, there is still the old call of black magic inside Emma and the knowledge that Storybrooke is not any normal city still remains. But the smiles and smirks, the jokes and banter are the glimpse form the past they need to keep walking. To keep learning.

Regina clears her throat and gives her a disapproval stare as she squeezes her hand. For the ones looking at them Regina seems as angry as them. For Emma the tiniest smirk that flickers Regina’s left lip is clearly visible and proof enough that she hasn’t done anything wrong.

Is strange, to be carefree. Or, at least, as carefree as possible, but is something they needed. To try and be something else than just them. And so she lolls on the seat and focuses on the play, where Henry is already declaiming his first lines.

Yes, they needed it, she thinks as Regina lifts her hand and kisses it.

**93.- “Stay there.  I’m coming to get you.”**

Regina hangs up the phone and looks at the window, pointedly not thinking on the last word Emma has uttered on the speaker after she has decided to go for her in the middle of the storm that is now falling over Storybrooke, night long ago settled.

“I will get you home”

Home.

She feels lightheaded while picking up her things and glancing at the papers she will need for tomorrow morning. Home.

Is a word, a word that probably Emma hasn’t think twice about it. Is a word she has found herself thinking about every time she has seen Emma inside the house she once called her own. Home.

 She can remember how her own home, the place that had seen her grown, had stopped being home for her; she can see and can remembers the moment she saw just a place to live in. She can remember how the castle she lived once was never the refugee she sought or wanted. She can remember feeling at home when Henry arrived, can remember the moment the house turned out to be a place to sleep back when he had left the room she had once decorated while trying to not spoil the child.

Is strange to think about the place as a home right now. As a home with Emma in it. With the blonde calling it that.

And, at the same, is not. It has been four months since she decided to take the leap of faith, four months since she took the step Emma needed. Four months of soft steps towards something she cannot yet see and words and sentences sometimes murmured, sometimes whispered in the back of trembling hands.

Home, she resumes, tilting her head and hugging her own figure as the sound of a motor engine reaches her ears, is not so bad. Is it?

And when she sees Emma she decides that is not.

**94.- “I brought you an umbrella.”**

The words float on Emma’s mind as she looks at the red umbrella Regina gave her the week ago, the black handle resting on the wall, the still dripping object leaving a mark on the, otherwise, clean floor.

She tastes the words on her mouth while eyeing the object, remembering the moment Regina had given it to her. Not coldly, not off-handily, but with a smile and an amused look when Emma herself had tried to make a joke of it.

And yet the umbrella had remained in the mansion, never leaving the place, never seeming to be needed at any other house. At any other apartment.

It has been a week.

And Emma hasn’t moved, hasn’t moved out the place, hasn’t needed to return back to her apartment, hasn’t needed to close the door and say bye to the mansion.

And Regina hasn’t said a thing.

The blonde eyes at a now softly sleeping brunette and kisses the woman’s temple softly, smiling when the former Queen nuzzles her nose against her left before turning and resuming her nap.

It has been a week since she appeared for dinner. A week since Regina asked her to stay.

A week since the umbrella.

And in a way the umbrella looks good on Regina’s house. On the boy’s house.

On… here.

So she lets herself fall asleep.

**95.- “I want you to be happy.”**

The words are out even before Emma can fully process them. But she is tired. And afraid. And not liking their first quarrel, not after three weeks of tentatively trying to live together. Or, perhaps, trying to start thinking about it.

Either way their discussion has nothing to do with it. And yet Emma fears that it must have put their equilibrium in danger.

Which is something she knows she shouldn’t be thinking, old fear resurfacing about not being good enough for a place, a family, that can very well kick her out. She is not a child anymore. And she has become something different from the young woman she was. Yet the discussion has let her weak and vulnerable and tired.

“I just want to give you that” She repeats in front of a silent Regina, the woman staring at her, mouth still half-open, words still echoing in the middle of the kitchen.

She doesn’t say anything else but Regina’s eyes widen and a sharp breath is made before Regina comes closer to her and grabs her hand, slowly, carefully, gently.

She never says that Emma is already making her happy, never says the words Emma has started to see written in the back of her eyelids for some days now, the response that wants to come out every time they go to sleep together. And yet Emma feels the words like a balsam.

“I’m here” Regina whispers instead. And is enough.


	20. Loving

**96.- “I believe in you.”**

The words are mumbled, an inch of separation between their lips be, a soft smile on brown eyes, a final kiss signing the words. And Emma believes what Regina is saying, knows that the brunette actually trusts her.

Is strange how trust works, how little she once claimed to trust Regina and how deeply she did instead. How she once managed to break her trust with the woman, how she managed to get it back.

This time, however, is not as worrisome or as dangerous as any of those times. Just a speech in front of the city, Storybrooke apparently being freed of what it has turned out to be its annual curse.

Emma has to give points to the citizens for their humor but she certainly doesn’t like the fact she is about to give a speck of something she still feels that isn’t hers to tell anymore. Regina’s words, however, do the trick and give her the strength to nod and start the speech, voice trembling at first and eyes trained into both Henry and Regina, the two of them seated in the front row, proud smile on their face and -in Regina’s case- a tingling glow of something else in the back of her pupils.

Is ironic, she realizes as she finishes her speech and mentions the ones she truly beliefs are who would need to be there with her, how far she has become, how similarly she once upon a time gave another speech, once she had ended with the thought that she was hours away of needing to leave Storybrooke.

She wondered, remembered, realizing that it had become quite normal for her to think in the pass in the past months, as a puzzle trying to form itself.

“And now… I will go to my family before you all decide that I’m too boring to even be talking here”

Smiling, leaving behind the fog that always covered her mind whenever she thought about things she should have done and things that never were, she rose and walked away, leaving Archie to be the one who closed the even with his own speech, eyes still completely focused on a smirking Henry and a slightly blushing Regina, pride still on their eyes.

Family, she realized when she finally approached them. She had called them family.

She didn’t panic, she didn’t feel the need to do it. She just hugged them.

Because they were that, they were just that. And they were a pretty damned good one.

**97.- “Be careful.”**

It has become another costume; for them to wish each other a good morning, for them to kiss the other, to peck the other, before going with their days.

And for some reason it doesn’t bothers Emma, the woman who clearly hated settling down.

Which is perhaps the reason why Regina smiles at the sound of the blonde’s voice behind her back as they separate. With the lack of evil doers -or rather the strange calmness that seems to be surrounding the city- the words that once again may have been said between whispers or even with just a strained gaze between them, doesn’t have now any more meaning that a well-meant thought for the other to have a good day.

Which should bore Regina. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t for the promises that wish holds.

And is comforting and warm the way it reaches now her ears. That makes her reflect on the things and steps she has taken. On how she finally decided to jump and trust Emma, on how she decided to admit to Snow what she wanted, to admit to herself what she wanted.

And is strange to finally be able to live under that premise, but gratifying. Which can be why she enjoys those moments, moments she knows that under any other circumstance she would have thought about them with need and now she knows their real meaning.

Is comforting. Reassuring.

Hers. And she wouldn’t want them in any other way.

**98.- “Take a deep breath.”**

Emma nods as Regina looks at her, hands extended, waiting for her, magic sizzling between them.

She knows she is ready. Knows she has this.

And so she takes a breath a relaxes her body, her mind swirling as she lets out a burst of magic that runs down her arms until its crackling on her fingers, sparks of magic dancing between them, on her skin, on her nails, waiting for her.

Is energy, pure energy. One she doesn’t fear or hate anymore.

“You got this Emma” Regina mutters and Emma feels the voice echoing inside of her, ringing on her ears, touching her cells.

And yes, she has this, she knows. And when the energy blast comes out of her she grabs it and uses it in the correct way, the words of a spell falling down her lips, knowledge that doesn’t make her feel weak or squeamish but whole.

When she opens her eyes and looks up Regina is smiling proudly.

“You’ve done it”

And yes, indeed she has.

**99.- “Is your seatbelt on?”**

Is the last thing Emma says to Regina before they cross the town, the usual feeling of numbness washing over her while she readjust to a world without magic.

And she remembers that time when she asked Emma if she wanted for them to leave the town and never come back, to turn and not look back. She remembers when she felt about to drown, when Robin’s presence was nothing but a dead weight.

She remembers.

And she smiles, smiles because there is no stifling sensation, no dead weight. She stills knows there is too many things she needs to know, needs to learn, she knows that she won’t be able to be perfect, she knows that fate is not written for her anymore.

And that doesn’t scare her anymore, doesn’t repulses her, doesn’t make her want to be something she wasn’t, doesn’t want to make her be less selfish, less her.

So she looks towards the blonde, blonde who is smiling, reservations due in an hour and a date about to happen, and it just escapes her lips, a mumble. A whisper. A promise.

**100.- “I love you”**

She doesn’t realize that she has said the words. Not straight on. Perhaps because Emma just kisses her lips and nods, whispering the words back at her before turning to look at the sea in front of them, horizon far as ever. Perhaps because there is no cosmic reaction, no sudden light, just the feel of rightness, the feel that she has been needing to say the words for a really long time.  The feel that she doesn’t need fate to tell her that she loves the woman driving next to her.

Perhaps because, just like Emma once said, actions are more meaningful than words.

And if there is something she knows is that she loves the woman at her side. She loves her strength, her body, her eyes, her voice.

She loves her.

And the best part is that this is not the end of their journey, just another step.

She wonders were the rest are going to make them go, wonders when -not if, but when because she knows her city well-enough- hell is going to break loose, she wonders how and why, which and what. She wonders.

But it doesn’t matter. Because if she knows something is that she has Emma, has her at her side, has her around her, inside of her.

And so she whispers the words again and kisses the blonde, stronger this time, but with the same weight, the same meaning.

And she has the feeling that Emma knows why.

 (The car does a sudden turn but Emma manages to put them right on track)

And so she looks once again at the road in front of her and smile.

Another step. Just that.


End file.
